Weak effects of habitat type on susceptibility to invasive freshwater species: an Italian case study.

Introduction of alienspecies is one of the major threats to aquatic biota and knowledge of the major correlates of their occurrence is pivotal in planning reliable conservation strategies. 2. To understand whether specific freshwater habitats are more likely to be invaded than others, a dataset on the occurrence of 1604 species in 54 taxonomic groups from 181 sites across the Italian peninsula was gathered. 3. TheEUNIShabitatclassificationwas used, selectingfor the study's seven habitat types at thesecondEUNIS level, including lentic (EUNIS C1; 64 sites), lotic (EUNIS C2; 99 sites) and highly artificial (EUNIS J5; 18 sites) habitats. 4. The aim of the study was to test whether the overall number of alienspecies and the proportion of alienspecies for each taxonomic group differed between habitat types and could be explained by environmental, human-mediated, or climatic factors. 5. Using generalized linear mixed effect models to account for potential confounding factors, only average air temperature of the site was a significant positive predictor of the occurrence of alienspecies, regardless of habitat type, speciesrichness, and other climatic variables. 6. A direct effect of temperature could be excluded given the origin of alienspecies, mostly from colder areas than Italy. Thus, an indirect effect could be hypothesized at the Italian latitudes, with warmer areas potentially