After a gap of nearly two decades, the first comprehensive summary volume on all invasive animal taxa in Hungary has been published. The publication is available (also in English) in the Rosalia Handbooks series of the Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate.

Despite the fact that the spatial expansion of invasive alien animal species is now a major threat to our aquatic and forest ecosystems, there has been no book that would have started to put even a species lists together, let alone gather all the knowledge available from researchers and experts concerning different taxa. This enormous work was carried out by 36 specialists, experts in each taxonomic group. Several researchers from the Centre for Ecological Research have co-authored the volume, with Péter Borza co-authoring the chapter on Peracarida, and Zoltán Soltész, Zsolt László Garamszegi and Edina Török co-authoring the chapter on Diptera species.

In this volume, the authors present species that are primarily cause an ecological problem in their new habitat, but as the descriptions show, there are several species that do have a major or even catastrophic economic impact. The book contains detailed descriptions of the 118 species that have already occur in Hungary or will inevitably do so in the near future, as well as brief descriptions of 4 amphibian and 32 species of terrestrial snails. A general conclusion of the present volume is that our natural waters are especially vulnerable as more than half of the species dealt with within the book occur in aquatic habitats.

Photo: Imre Potyó (Chaetogammarus ischnus)

Source: Rosalia Handbooks 5. Invasive Animal Species in Hungary