Final Project Meeting "Assessment and Management of Dreissena spp. Invasions

in the Bulgarian Water Bodies"

29 April – 4 May 2012, Sofia, Bulgaria

The Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences together with Biological Faculty of Sofia University and National Museum of Natural History implemented a project entitled "Assessment and Management of Dreissena spp. Invasions in the Bulgarian Water Bodies", Project DO 02-283/2008, funded by the Bulgarian Science Fund, Ministry of Education, Youth and Science.

The final project meeting was held on 29 April – 4 May 2012 in Sofia, Bulgaria. All Bulgarian participants and project partners from Hydrobiology Institute Ohrid, R. Macedonia, "Grigore Antipa" National Museum of Natural History, Romania, Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Austria, and US Army Corps of Engineers, USA, participated in the meeting.

The meeting provided a forum for summary, presentation and discussion of project results. The following working sessions were convened, where updates on different work packages and project accomplishments were presented and discussed:
• Distribution and characteristics of native and invasive Dreissena populations
• Impact of Dreissena invasions on water physicochemical parameters and plankton communities
• Impact of Dreissena invasions on benthic and fish communities
• Risk assessment and management of Dreissena.

A separate session was devoted to the work package on implementing the multi-criteria decision analysis process related to Dreissena invasions, which included: - development of a set of evaluation criteria to be used to evaluate and compare the potential benefits of previously selected management actions; - estimation of the relative importance of these evaluation criteria under different Dreissena threat conditions (low, moderate, and high threat levels); - estimation of the expected performance of each management action with respect to each evaluation criterion. The results were used for the completion of the risk-based multi-criteria decision analysis framework for the prevention and control of Dreissena spp. within Bulgarian waters.

A special session was devoted to IAS networking and presentation of ESENIAS. Potential opportunities for future collaboration within the frame of ESENIAS were discussed by project partners.

See Meeting Agenda >>>