Assessment of the Distribution of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed in Russia

An invasive species of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed (Hheraculum sosnowskyi Manden.) currently poses a serious threat to the health, livelihoods of the population and the economy of most regions of Russia. Not fully realized potential of this species is likely to lead to an even larger distribution of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed in dozens of Russian regions. In order to study the features of the current distribution of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed and the trends in expanding its range in the future, an ecological and geographical analysis of the current abundance, distribution potential, and degree of danger of the studied invasive species in Russia was carried out. The distribution potential is determined by the hypothetically possible areas that the species is able to populate, the presence of preferred habitats and trends in their change. The calculations took into account indicators that are significant for the distribution of H. sosnowskyi and reflected in national statistics: the density of roads and railways, the growth rate of road density over the past 10 years, the number of abandoned villages and their trends, the area of unused agricultural land, the density of the river network. The current and predicted distribution of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed in Russian regions is shown on the authors’ maps, reflecting the abundance of H. sosnowskyi, the danger of its distribution in the federal subjects and separately in the Central Federal District under different scenarios for the development of socioeconomic conditions. To date, catastrophic danger threatens five, and very high danger threatens ten Russian regions. In seven federal subjects, this species can potentially populate more than 80% of the territory. The proposed approaches to assessing the distribution of Sosnowsky’s Hogweed as an invasive species will allow visualizing and modeling the results of its long-term monitoring, which will contribute to the adequate and timely development of measures to control the number of a dangerous alien species.

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