Invasive alien species in Switzerland - Schweizer ...

7 > Other selected invertebrate groups 121
7 > Other selected invertebrate groups
Prepared by Rüdiger Wittenberg and Marc Kenis
This chapter gives only a few examples of alien species from groups which can cause
problems for the environment not dealt with in other chapters of this report. It is not
possible to give comprehensive lists of most of these invertebrate groups. Therefore,
the objective is to give a brief overview of potential problematic species for biodiversity
and ecosystems in Switzerland. As mentioned before, there is a great need for
more taxonomic work on these groups, not only the alien species, but the native species
as well. Based on future work, more comprehensive lists of some groups may be added
in the future to complete the knowledge of established alien species in Switzerland.
7.1 Nematodes – Nemathelminthes
Nematodes are a large but little-known group of tiny worms. There is no comprehensive
checklist of species in this group for Switzerland, but many species are of great
economic importance as pests in agriculture and forestry. Species exclusively causing
economic damage are not part of the report, since they are the best-known species in
this group; the Swiss Federal Research Stations are actively working on them, and
there are other sources dealing with them, e.g. CABI (2001) lists the following 11
problematic nematodes for Switzerland: Globodera pallida (Stone) Behrens, G. rostochiensis
(Wollenweber) Behrens, Heterodera avenae Wollenweber, H. schachtii
A.Schmidt, Longidorus elongatus (de Man) Micoletzky, Meloidogyne arenaria (neal)
Chitwood, M. hapla Chitwood, Pratylenchus penetrans (Cobb) Filipjev & Schuurmans,
Punctodera punctata (Thorne) Mulvey & Stone, Xiphinema diversicaudatum
(Micoletzky) Thorne, and X. index Thorne & Allen.
The pine wood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Steiner & Buhrer) Nickle)
(see Fact Sheet) is an example of a species that has recently been found in Europe and
is considered to be a potential threat to Pinus spp. here. Thus, its wider spread within
Europe should be prevented.
The nematode Anguillicola crassus Kuwahara, Niimi & Itagaki (Anguillicolidae) is an
example of a nematode that is having an extensive impact by attacking a fish species.
This nematode is a parasite of eel species. In Europe the native Anguilla anguilla L. is
under threat following the invasion of the nematode. The nematode was accidentally
introduced with imports of live Asian eels to Europe in 1982 (Konecny et al., 2002).
Besides the negative impact on natural populations of the European eel, it affects
Europe’s important fishing industries. The European eel is native in the river systems