Assessing the Impact of Key Marine Invasive Non-Native Species on Welsh MPA Habitat Features, Fisheries and Aquaculture
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Assessing the impact of key Marine Invasive Non-Native Species on Welsh MPA habitat features, fisheries and aquaculture. Tillin, H.M., Kessel, C., Sewell, J., Wood, C.A. Bishop, J.D.D Marine Biological Association of the UK Report No. 454 Date www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk About Natural Resources Wales Natural Resources Wales’ purpose is to pursue sustainable management of natural resources. This means looking after air, land, water, wildlife, plants and soil to improve Wales’ well-being, and provide a better future for everyone. Evidence at Natural Resources Wales Natural Resources Wales is an evidence based organisation. We seek to ensure that our strategy, decisions, operations and advice to Welsh Government and others are underpinned by sound and quality-assured evidence. We recognise that it is critically important to have a good understanding of our changing environment. We will realise this vision by: Maintaining and developing the technical specialist skills of our staff; Securing our data and information; Having a well resourced proactive programme of evidence work; Continuing to review and add to our evidence to ensure it is fit for the challenges facing us; and Communicating our evidence in an open and transparent way. This Evidence Report series serves as a record of work carried out or commissioned by Natural Resources Wales. It also helps us to share and promote use of our evidence by others and develop future collaborations. However, the views and recommendations presented in this report are not necessarily those of NRW and should, therefore, not be attributed to NRW. www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk Page 1 Report series: NRW Evidence Report Report number: 454 Publication date: July 2020 Contract number: Contractor: The Marine Biological Association, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB Contract Manager: Kate Griffith, Chloe Powell Jennings Title: Assessing the impact of key Marine Invasive Non-Native Species on Welsh MPA habitat features, fisheries and aquaculture Author(s): Tillin, H.M., Kessel, C., Sewell, J., Wood, C.A., Bishop, J.D.D Peer Reviewer(s): Kate Griffith, Chloe Powell Jennings, Gabrielle Wyn, Maggie Hatton-Ellis Restrictions: None Distribution List (core) NRW Library, Bangor 2 National Library of Wales 1 British Library 1 Welsh Government Library 1 Scottish Natural Heritage Library 1 Natural England Library (Electronic Only) 1 Recommended citation for this volume: Tillin, H.M., Kessel, C., Sewell, J., Wood, C.A., Bishop, J.D.D. 2020. Assessing the impact of key Marine Invasive Non-Native Species on Welsh MPA habitat features, fisheries and aquaculture. NRW Evidence Report. Report No: 454, 260pp, Natural Resources Wales, Bangor. www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk Page 2 Acknowledgements The project team would like to thank Kate Griffith at NRW for her support and input throughout the project. The project team are also highly grateful to the external experts who reviewed factsheets and outputs or provided comments. We would like to thank (in alphabetical order): Gail Ashton (Caprella mutica); Roger Herbert (Magallana gigas); Stuart Jenkins (Crepidula fornicata); Christine Maggs (Agarophyton vermiculophyllum synonym Gracilaria vermiculopylla and Bonnemaisonia hamifera); Sophie Pitois (Mnemiopsis leidyi); Will Ryan (Diadumene lineata) and Paul Stebbing (Homarus americanus). The authors would also like to thank all the individuals who granted us permission to use their images of the various non-native species within this report. Experts within the project team reviewed Rapana venosa (Jack Sewell); Watersipora subatra (Christine Wood) and Asterocarpa humilis and Didemnum vexillum (John Bishop). www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk Page 3 Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 14 Background .......................................................................................................................14 Aims ..................................................................................................................................14 Project Outputs .................................................................................................................14 Report Structure ................................................................................................................15 2 Methods ........................................................................................................................ 15 Non-native species evaluated by this project ...................................................................15 MPA features evaluated by this project ............................................................................16 Assessing the likelihood of MPA feature exposure...........................................................17 Fisheries and aquaculture activities assessed by this project ..........................................18 Assigning target species to functional groups ..................................................................20 Risk assessment overview ................................................................................................22 Risk assessment methodology: EICAT assessments ......................................................23 EICAT Impact categories for MPA features: species and habitats ...................................25 Assessing socio-economic impacts on aquaculture and fisheries (SEICAT) ...................26 Confidence assessment ....................................................................................................27 Overall risk and confidence scoring methodology for EICAT ...........................................28 Evidence review methodology ..........................................................................................28 3 Results ......................................................................................................................... 30 Result outputs ...................................................................................................................30 Review of MPA feature exposure .....................................................................................30 Review of impacts on characterising species (EICAT) .....................................................32 Review of habitat impacts on MPA features (EICAT) .......................................................35 Summary of MPA impact scores.......................................................................................36 MPA Vulnerability ..............................................................................................................38 SEICAT Assessment Results: Health and Safety.............................................................41 SEICAT assessments: Material Assets (Infrastructure and Operations) ..........................41 SEICAT Aquaculture and Fisheries targeted species ......................................................43 SEICAT assessment: Social, spiritual and cultural relations ............................................46 4 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 48 Evidence Gaps: Exposure, EICAT and SEICAT impacts .................................................48 Species specific Evidence gaps .......................................................................................51 Risk Assessment Application ............................................................................................53 5 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 55 6 References ................................................................................................................... 58 Annex 1 MPA habitat features .............................................................................................. 60 Annex 2 Environment impact categories based on EICAT .................................................... 62 Annex 3 Socio-economic impact categories based on SEICAT ............................................ 70 Annex 4 Compass sea squirt: Asterocarpa humilis ............................................................... 71 Asterocarpa humilis: Habitat ..........................................................................................................71 www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk Page 4 Asterocarpa humilis: Establishment in Wales as of 2020 ..............................................................72 Asterocarpa humilis: Impact pathways based on species traits, biology and ecology ..................72 Asterocarpa humilis: Impact pathways – Habitats .........................................................................73 Asterocarpa humilis: Interactions with MPA Features ...................................................................73 Asterocarpa humilis Socio-Economic Impacts ...............................................................................75 Asterocarpa humilis: References ...................................................................................................76 Annex 5 Slipper limpet : Crepidula fornicata ......................................................................... 78 Crepidula fornicata: Impact pathways based on species traits, biology and ecology ....................79 Crepidula fornicata: Impact pathways – Habitats ...........................................................................82