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The Common Waxbill As a Case Study

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The Common Waxbill As a Case Study Biology Department Research Group Terrestrial Ecology _____________________________________________________________________________ A MECHANISTIC VIEW OF BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS: THE COMMON WAXBILL AS A CASE STUDY Michaël Goedertier Student number: 01303412 Supervisor: Dr. Diederik Strubbe Counsellor: Prof. Dr. Luc Lens Master’s dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of Master of Science in Biology Academic year: 2019 - 2020 © Faculty of Sciences – research group Terrestrial Ecology All rights reserved. This thesis contains confidential information and confidential research results that are property to the UGent. The contents of this master thesis may under no circumstances be made public, nor complete or partial, without the explicit and preceding permission of the UGent representative, i.e. the supervisor. The thesis may under no circumstances be copied or duplicated in any form, unless permission granted in written form. Any violation of the confidential nature of this thesis may impose irreparable damage to the UGent. In case of a dispute that may arise within the context of this declaration, the Judicial Court of Gent only is competent to be notified. 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4 1.1. Global change and biological invasions ...................................................................................... 4 1.2. Species Distribution Models ........................................................................................................ 6 1.3. The common waxbill (Estrilda astrild) .......................................................................................... 8 2. Objectives ...................................................................................................................................... 9 3. Material and methods ................................................................................................................... 10 3.1. Niche Mapper ........................................................................................................................... 10 3.1.1. Microclimate submodel ..................................................................................................... 12 3.1.2. Animal submodel .............................................................................................................. 13 3.2. Metabolic chamber analysis ...................................................................................................... 15 3.3. Sensitivity analysis ................................................................................................................... 16 3.3.1. Preparing the microclimate data ........................................................................................ 16 3.3.2. Model creation .................................................................................................................. 17 3.3.3. Model evaluation............................................................................................................... 19 3.4. Whole continent predictions ...................................................................................................... 20 4. Results ......................................................................................................................................... 21 4.1. Metabolic chamber analysis ...................................................................................................... 21 4.2. Sensitivity analysis ................................................................................................................... 22 4.2.1. Africa ................................................................................................................................ 23 4.2.2. Europe .............................................................................................................................. 26 4.2.3. South-America .................................................................................................................. 29 4.3. Whole continent predictions ...................................................................................................... 32 5. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 36 5.1. Metabolic chamber analysis ...................................................................................................... 36 5.2. Sensitivity analysis ................................................................................................................... 37 5.3. Whole continent prediction........................................................................................................ 40 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 41 7. Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 42 8. Samenvatting ............................................................................................................................... 45 9. Laymen summary ......................................................................................................................... 48 10. Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... 49 11. References .................................................................................................................................. 50 3 1. Introduction 1.1. Global change and biological invasions Global change is one of the most prevalent ecological research subjects to date. Global change refers to the planetary-wide changes happening on Earth human induced or not. These changes include planetary scale changes to economy, population, climate, globalization and technology such as energy development and transport (Vitousek 1994). Global change has several important ecological consequences such as the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide by technological and industrial developments from 280 to 407,4 ppm since 1800, which is higher than any point in the past 800 000 years (Lindsey 2020). Carbon dioxide, being a greenhouse gas, increases the worldwide temperature which can change the climate of several regions. Besides the change in carbon dioxide, global change also has a substantial impact on the biogeochemical cycles, altering important cycles like the nitrogen cycle which in turn alters the chemistry of the atmosphere (Vitousek 1994). Another important factor of global change is the change in human land use which results in several fragmented habitats. All these factors combined have many implications for the world, one of which is the change in species distributions. Species will have to adapt to these new changing conditions, immigrate to new environments which are better suited for their needs or risk extinction. These altered climates of many regions increase the risk of another very important consequence of global change: the biological invasion of alien species (Dukes et al. 1999, Bellard et al. 2013). Biological invasions occur when an organism arrives somewhere beyond its previous range and it is dispersed widely, successfully colonizing the natural ecosystems of this new region. These biological invasions often do not happen naturally, as species need some outside aid to break through their natural dispersion barriers to arrive in these new regions. This help is often intentionally or unintentionally provided by humans (Williamson et al. 1996). An example of such an introduction of a species outside its native range is the eastern gray squirrel (Scurius carolinensis). These grey squirrels are native to North America but were introduces to England by humans in 1876 as fashionable additions to estates. They quickly spread throughout the entirety of Great Britain and in 1948 arrived in continental Europe. Nowadays, introduced populations exist worldwide in several regions including Hawaii, South Africa, Bermuda, Ireland, United Kingdom and Italy. Especially in Europe these grey squirrels pose a serious threat because they are actively replacing the native red squirrel (Scurius vulgaris) in these regions. The Italian populations have been predicted to expand into Switzerland and France in the near future and then continuing throughout the rest of Europe which could mean the extinction of the red squirrel in these regions (Lawton et al. 2010). Some introduced species have positive effects, for example, in Denmark, the red macroalgae Gracilaria vermiculophylla has positive effects on the native invertebrates by increasing the available habitats (Thomsen 2010). However there are some invading species that have clear negative effects on biodiversity, human health, wealth and the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Introduced species, such as the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) in North America, can be vectors for several infectious diseases, in this case arboviruses, for example dengue fever, which negatively impact human health (Vitousek et al. 1997, Craven et al. 1988). 4 Another example is the Old world screwworm fly (Chrysmya bezziana), which is an insect parasite of cattle and wildlife. Due to the increasing number of annual tourism in Australia, the species’ spreading in this area has
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