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Guest blog post by Theresa Henke
For centuries, all kinds of species have been transported by humans around the globe, allowing them to cross the boundaries of their native range and settle in new ecosystems. Over the past decades the numbers of these introduced species and the impacts they cause have been continuously increasing. Biological invasions nowadays represent one of the biggest threats to biodiversity worldwide.
Humans are and have always been an essential part of biological invasions and in order to fully understand the issue and how to tackle it, we need to understand and include the human dimensions in our research.
My research on European flounder in Iceland began in 2017 when I was writing my Master’s thesis. The flounder is a flatfish species that had been officially documented in the country since 1999 but not much was known on its impacts. In my thesis I looked at the flounder through ecological lenses, trying to identify how the presence of the flounder affects other species. Living in a small community in the Westfjords of Iceland during this time, I got to meet many local people who shared their personal stories, experiences and knowledge with me in every-day conversations. I truly enjoyed these conversations and learning about the species I study from different perspectives beyond the academic settings. These exchanges sparked my interest in exploring the human dimensions of biological invasions and, looking back, have really shaped my academic path going forward.
In our recently published NeoBiota study “Have you seen this fish? – Important contribution of stakeholder observations in documenting the distribution and spread of an alien fish species in Iceland” we wanted to explore how the knowledge and experience of recreational anglers in Iceland can help us understand how far the flounder has spread in Iceland. The flounder in Iceland had only received little scientific interest before and the available information was limited and scattered between different institutions and scientists. Recreational anglers, on the other hand, who chase after native salmon, trout, and char in the Icelandic rivers and lakes, often encounter the flounder.
In 2019, we asked anglers in Iceland to take part in an online survey, where we asked them different questions about the flounder, including where in Iceland they have seen or caught it. We then compared locations named by anglers to the locations that were available from different databases of the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute of Iceland. The locations we received included data collected during scientific surveys and research projects done by the institute as well as observations that were reported to the institute by the public (mostly recreational anglers and commercial fishermen).
Our goal was to evaluate whether observations made by stakeholders, in this case the recreational angling community in Iceland, could be a good source of additional information for monitoring of an alien fish species. Collecting information on the distribution and spread of an alien species is a very important step in addressing biological invasions but is often underdeveloped because not enough resources (i.e. money, time, scientists…) are made available.
We have shown that neither source offers a perfect solution to the monitoring of the flounder in Iceland. But we show that each of the sources has their own advantages and disadvantages and by combining them, we are able to get a much clearer picture of where in Iceland the flounder currently occurs and how fast it spread in the early years. Information that was shared by stakeholders, whether it was in our study or to the databases of the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, played a big role in better understanding the flounder in Iceland.
The interactions with the recreational angling community in Iceland during my PhD have taught me a lot about the flounder in Iceland but even more about my own approach to science. I think as scientists, we should more often take a step outside of our academic bubble and take a look at the issue we are studying from the perspectives of the public and other stakeholders. In the case of biological invasions, we can learn a lot from those who are directly confronted by an invasive species, regardless of whether they have a scientific degree or not.
Research article:
Henke T, Bárðarson H, Thorlacius M, Ólafsdóttir GA (2025) Have you seen this fish? Important contribution of stakeholder observations in documenting the distribution and spread of an alien fish species in Iceland. NeoBiota 97: 67-90. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.97.132365