Publications

1.    Nõomaa, K.; Kotta, J.; Szava-Kovats, R.; Herkül, K.; Hubel, K.; Eschbaum, R.; Vetemaa, M. 2022. Novel fish predator causes sustained changes in its prey populations. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, 849878. Read HERE.

2. Beleem, I.B.; Kotta, J.; Barboza, F.R. Effects of an Invasive Mud Crab on a Macroalgae-Dominated Habitat of the Baltic Sea under Different Temperature Regimes. Diversity 2023, 15, 644. HERE.

3. The first study of its kind on the impact of marine alien species on ecosystem services. Researchers from the Pärnu College of the University of Tartu and the Estonian Marine Institute studied the impact of widespread alien species in the Baltic Sea on the natural resources consumed by humans.

There are 220 alien species recorded in the Baltic Sea, and a third of them are established here. Invasive alien species are considered to be widespread in the Baltic Sea if they occur in the territorial waters of at least five countries. Consumptive ecosystem services include provisioning services (what humans get from the ecosystem: food, drinking water, etc.), regulating and maintaining services (e.g. climate regulation and water quality), life-supporting services (e.g. matter cycling and photosynthesis) and cultural services (aesthetic values, spiritual pleasures and recreational opportunities provided by nature). This classification is based on CICES, the most widely used classification of natural assets in Europe.

Henn Ojaveer, Professor of Marine Ecosystems at Pärnu College, University of Tartu, and Heli Einberg, Research Fellow in Socioecology, and Jonne Kotta, Professor of Marine Ecology at the Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, together with the projects Norvegian partner, examined over 1,700 scientific evidences from about 100 scientific publications, which revealed that only eight alien species – accounting for a tenth of the alien species established in the Baltic Sea – have sufficient information for classical research.

All of the non-native species studied were found to have a statistically significant impact on the natural goods consumed by humans in the Baltic Sea (on average a 55% change in the rate of supply of natural goods).

While most of the impacts were related to both wildlife and wildlife-related regulatory services, there are very few records on provisioning and cultural services and virtually no documented information on socio-economic impacts.

Socio-ecology researcher Heli Einberg added that of these species, the water vole, the peregrine falcon and the round-tailed godwit, with which we are all familiar, are the most affected by the provision of natural goods. Cercopagis pengoi, which is only a few millimetres in size, was first found in the Baltic Sea in Pärnu Bay in the early 1990s. The common carp Dreissena polymorpha was introduced into our waters a century and a half ago. The round goby Neogobius melanostomus, however, is the alien species that has so far attracted the most attention.

See the alien species database AquaNIS

Read the full publication HERE. Ojaveer, H., Einberg, H., Lehtiniemi, M., Outinen, O., Zaiko, A., Jelmert, A. and Kotta, J., 2023. Quantifying impacts of human pressures on ecosystem services: Effects of widespread non-indigenous species in the Baltic Sea. Science of The Total Environment, 858, p.159975.