Invasive species - American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) in Flanders, Belgium (post 2018)

Citation

Description

Invasive species - American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) in Flanders, Belgium (Post 2018) is a species occurrence dataset published by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). The dataset contains over 24600 occurrences (40 % of which are American bullfrogs) sampled between 2019 until now, in the months April to October. The occurrences were collected through fieldwork and the framework of bullfrog management. Captured bullfrogs were almost always removed from the environment and humanely killed, while the other occurrences are recorded bycatch, which were released upon catch (see bibliography for detailed descriptions of the methods). Therefore, caution is advised when using these data for trend analysis, distribution range calculation, or other. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/inbo/sk-analyse

We strongly believe an open attitude is essential for tackling the IAS problem (Groom et al. 2015). To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate it however if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/daf62d) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualized the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata, opendata@inbo.be or https://twitter.com/LifeWatchINBO.

Data from 2010 to 2018 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.15468/2hqkqn

Purpose

The increasing establishment of invasive alien species (IAS) present many challenges for policy makers, managers and researchers. An adequate response to IAS requires accurate and up-to-date information on their distribution. This information can only be provided if IAS data are available and usable by all. American bullfrog is a high profile IAS. Due to its broad global distribution and widespread effects on native biodiversity through various impact mechanisms, American bullfrog is listed as one of the top 100 most invasive alien species in the world by the IUCN (Lowe et al. 2000). The species is suspected to cause substantial ecological damage around large parts of the globe, exerting an additional pressure to already declining amphibian populations. Negative impacts on native biota entail competition, predation and the transmission of pathogens. Subsequently, in Europe, it is listed on the SEBI worst list of invasive non-native species with high impact on biodiversity, as well as the DAISIE list of the worst invasive aliens in Europe. For the same reasons, the species is included in the appendix to the Bern Convention recommendation n° 77 (1999) as a species which has proved to be a strong threat to biological diversity and for which eradication is strongly recommended. Moreover, the EU Wildlife Trade Regulation (338/97) Appendix B prohibits import of the species into the EU since December 1997. It is listed as a species of EU concern sensu the EU Regulation 1143/2014 on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of IAS. The data in this dataset are useful for scientific purposes such as distribution modelling, as well as early warning and rapid response protocols, but note that bullfrogs (40% of the occurrences) were almost always removed from the environment during the research and eradication campaign.

Sampling Description

Taxonomic Coverages

Geographic Coverages

Bibliographic Citations