Exotic species invasions undermine regional functional diversity of freshwater fish.

ABSTRACT: Exotic species invasions often result in native biodiversity loss, i.e. a lower taxonomic diversity, but current knowledge on invasions effects underlined a potential increase of functional diversity. We thus explored the connections between functional diversity and exotic species invasions, while accounting for their environmental drivers, using a fine-resolution large dataset of Mediterranean stream fish communities. While functional diversity of native and exotic species responded similarly to most environmental constraints, we found significant differences in the effects of altitude and in the different ranking of constraints. These differences suggest that invasion dynamics could play a role in overriding some major environmental drivers. Our results also showed that a lower diversity

SUBMITTER: Milardi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6884620 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature