Invasive Alien Species in Al-Dalmaj Protected Area, Iraq: Conservation and Wildlife Management Approach

Abstract

An invasive species can be any kind of living organism that is not originally native to an area or ecosystem. These species can harm the environment, the economy, or even human health, the matter that necessitates their studying and monitoring. The current study has focused only on the alien invasive species and excluded the invasive species of native origin. The alien invasive species have been studies for more than a decade in Dalmaj area as part of the Iraqi Organization for Conservation of Nature (IOCN)’s long-term environmental studies in this protected area that includes wide spectrum of habitats and is rich in biodiversity. Only the invasive species have been tackled in this survey, and the alien species that are of native origin have not been included in this study. Nineteen invasive species have been observed in the study area that belong to different flora and fauna taxa. These groups included three plant species (16% of the total invasive species), twelve fish species (63%), three bird species (16%), and one mammal species (5%). The status of these species in the study area was described. By shading light on this group of organisms and provide basic information on their population size, this would establish for long-term monitoring of these taxa and would help in the management of these species and assessing their effect in the different habitats of Al-Dalmaj protected area.