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Exotic species of herpetofauna in Europe and their impacts on native species
VOREL, Michal
The aim of this study was to carry out a research about the invasions of alien species of herpetofauna and their impacts, to present contemporary state of the studies of alien species in Europe, to analyze success of the invasions in terms of their taxonomic groups, to analyze the impacts of successful inavasions, to evaluate the results and suggest the project of appropriate precausions. Database Web of Science, Zoological Records and web browser Google Scholar were used as sources for searching scientific papers. These were the key words: "alien, reptiles/reptilia; alien, amphibians/ambhibia, invasive". The scientific studies which mentioned introduction of alien reptiles and amphibians to Europe were chosen from database. Population which was viable and reproduced repeatedly was considered as the stable population. Eight species from order salamanders, 20 frogs, eight turtles, 23 lizards and 11 snakes were introduced into geografic part of Europe. The most of the introduced species of alien herpetofauna belonged into families: Ranidae, Lacertidae and Emydidae. The most common pathways for introduction of alien species of herpetofauna were: pet trade, intentional release and cargo stowaway. In the future, the restriction of breeding certain problematic species (ban of import Lithobates catesbeianus and Trachemys scripta scripta into the Europe), more thorough controls of cargo transportation and especially information campaign in schools and media could be solution to the issue of introduction of alien species.
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