Investigação dos Efeitos Cumulativos de Múltiplas Espécies Invasoras em Ecossistemas Estuarinos

The X-IAS project addresses significant challenges posed by invasive alien species to the biodiversity. While current management efforts have failed to keep pace with globalization, critical gaps persist in understanding and responding to biological invasions, particularly with respect to the consequences of multiple invasive species coexisting in ecosystems. Despite mounting evidence for the invasional meltdown hypothesis (IMH) where one invader influences the invasion of others the understanding of these complex interactions at community and ecosystem level is still underdeveloped. Given the increasing homogenization of Earth's biota, there is an urgent need to focus attention on the IMH and accurately predict the impacts of co-invasions in order to develop effective environmental management and conservation strategies. By addressing these gaps and challenges, the X-IAS project aims to provide valuable insights into the dynamics of invasive alien species (IAS) interactions and their ecological consequences, contributing to more informed conservation and management practices. The objectives of the X-IAS project are ambitious and innovative and represent a significant advance over the current state of the art. By focusing on assessing the ecological impacts of multiple IAS at both community and ecosystem levels, the project ventures into unexplored territory, going beyond the traditional emphasis on single species impacts. Furthermore, the project breaks new ground with its approach of considering the additive, synergistic or antagonistic effects of co-invasions to understand the complexity of interactions between IAS. The development of predictive models to represent these interactions over time, including projected scenarios of global change, represents a novel approach that combines empirical data with modeling techniques. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary nature of the project, bringing together expertise from different disciplines such as ecology, invasion biology and modelling, underlines its ambition and potential for groundbreaking discoveries. In addition, the selection of the Minho estuary as a case study provides a unique opportunity to study multiple impact of IAS in a real-world setting, this allied to the PI's expertise in working in the study area, and her previous experience in invasion research, can provide new insights into the dynamics of co-invasions and their ecological consequences. Overall, the X-IAS project aims to push the boundaries of invasion research and offer new insights and methods to tackle the pressing challenges posed by IAS. In this way, X-IAS aims to develop six different working packages to answer the following questions: 1) What are the effects of the selected IAS on the food-web processes? 2) In which trophic position are the selected IAS? 3) How do the selected IAS interact in the study area, and whether their interactions are addictive, synergistic or antagonistic? and 4) How do single and multiple IAS scenarios (including temperature rise effects) alter food-web ecological attributes (phyto and zooplankton, others)?