How disturbance history alters invasion success: biotic legacies and regime change.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Miller AD
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8048489 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
How disturbance history alters invasion success: biotic legacies and regime change.
Miller Adam D AD Inamine Hidetoshi H Buckling Angus A Roxburgh Stephen H SH Shea Katriona K
Ecology letters 20210127 4
Disturbance is a key factor shaping ecological communities, but little is understood about how the effects of disturbance processes accumulate over time. When disturbance regimes change, historical processes may influence future community structure, for example, by altering invasibility compared to communities with stable regimes. Here, we use an annual plant model to investigate how the history of disturbance alters invasion success. In particular, we show how two communities can have different ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:Lionfish (Pterois volitans), venomous predators from the Indo-Pacific, are recent invaders of the Caribbean Basin and southeastern coast of North America. Quantification of invasive lionfish abundances, along with potentially important physical and biological environmental characteristics, permitted inferences about the invasion process of reefs on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas. Environmental wave-exposure had a large influence on lionfish abundance, which was more than 20 and 120 times greater for density and biomass respectively at sheltered sites as compared with wave-exposed environments. Our measurements of topographic complexity of the reefs revealed that lionfish abundance was not driven by habitat rugosity. Lionfish abundance was not negatively affected by the abundance of large native predators (or large native groupers) and was also unrelated to the abundance of medium prey fishes (total length of 5-10 cm). These relationships suggest that (1) higher-energy environments may impose intrinsic resistance against lionfish invasion, (2) habitat complexity may not facilitate the lionfish invasion process, (3) predation or competition by native fishes may not provide biotic resistance against lionfish invasion, and (4) abundant prey fish might not facilitate lionfish invasion success. The relatively low biomass of large grouper on this island could explain our failure to detect suppression of lionfish abundance and we encourage continuing the preservation and restoration of potential lionfish predators in the Caribbean. In addition, energetic environments might exert direct or indirect resistance to the lionfish proliferation, providing native fish populations with essential refuges.
| S-EPMC4153550 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Invasive species continue to proliferate and detrimentally impact ecosystems on a global scale. Whilst impacts are well-documented for many invaders, we lack tools to predict biotic resistance and invasion success. Biotic resistance from communities may be a particularly important determinant of the success of invaders. The present study develops traditional ecological concepts to better understand and quantify biotic resistance. We quantified predation towards the highly invasive Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus and a representative native mosquito Culex pipiens by three native and widespread cyclopoid copepods, using functional response and prey switching experiments. All copepods demonstrated higher magnitude type II functional responses towards the invasive prey over the analogous native prey, aligned with higher attack and maximum feeding rates. All predators exhibited significant, frequency-independent prey preferences for the invader. With these results, we developed a novel metric for biotic resistance which integrates predator numerical response proxies, revealing differential biotic resistance potential among predators. Our results are consistent with field patterns of biotic resistance and invasion success, illustrating the predictive capacity of our methods. We thus propose the further development of traditional ecological concepts, such as functional responses, numerical responses and prey switching, in the evaluation of biotic resistance and invasion success.
| S-EPMC6814831 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Broad-scale studies of climate change effects on freshwater species have focused mainly on temperature, ignoring critical drivers such as flow regime and biotic interactions. We use downscaled outputs from general circulation models coupled with a hydrologic model to forecast the effects of altered flows and increased temperatures on four interacting species of trout across the interior western United States (1.01 million km(2)), based on empirical statistical models built from fish surveys at 9,890 sites. Projections under the 2080s A1B emissions scenario forecast a mean 47% decline in total suitable habitat for all trout, a group of fishes of major socioeconomic and ecological significance. We project that native cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii, already excluded from much of its potential range by nonnative species, will lose a further 58% of habitat due to an increase in temperatures beyond the species' physiological optima and continued negative biotic interactions. Habitat for nonnative brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis and brown trout Salmo trutta is predicted to decline by 77% and 48%, respectively, driven by increases in temperature and winter flood frequency caused by warmer, rainier winters. Habitat for rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, is projected to decline the least (35%) because negative temperature effects are partly offset by flow regime shifts that benefit the species. These results illustrate how drivers other than temperature influence species response to climate change. Despite some uncertainty, large declines in trout habitat are likely, but our findings point to opportunities for strategic targeting of mitigation efforts to appropriate stressors and locations.
| S-EPMC3161569 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Why some organisms become invasive when introduced into novel regions while others fail to even establish is a fundamental question in ecology. Barriers to success are expected to filter species at each stage along the invasion pathway. No study to date, however, has investigated how species traits associate with success from introduction to spread at a large spatial scale in any group. Using the largest data set of mammalian introductions at the global scale and recently developed phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that human-mediated introductions considerably bias which species have the opportunity to become invasive, as highly productive mammals with longer reproductive lifespans are far more likely to be introduced. Subsequently, greater reproductive output and higher introduction effort are associated with success at both the establishment and spread stages. High productivity thus supports population growth and invasion success, with barriers at each invasion stage filtering species with progressively greater fecundity.
| S-EPMC4989474 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Competing theoretical models make different predictions on which life history strategies facilitate growth of small populations. While 'fast' strategies allow for rapid increase in population size and limit vulnerability to stochastic events, 'slow' strategies and bet-hedging may reduce variance in vital rates in response to stochasticity. We test these predictions using biological invasions since founder alien populations start small, compiling the largest dataset yet of global herpetological introductions and life history traits. Using state-of-the-art phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that successful invaders have fast traits, such as large and frequent clutches, at both establishment and spread stages. These results, together with recent findings in mammals and plants, support 'fast advantage' models and the importance of high potential population growth rate. Conversely, successful alien birds are bet-hedgers. We propose that transient population dynamics and differences in longevity and behavioural flexibility can help reconcile apparently contrasting results across terrestrial vertebrate classes.
| S-EPMC6849728 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The responses of forest communities to interacting anthropogenic disturbances like climate change and logging are poorly known. Subtropical forests have been heavily modified by humans and their response to climate change is poorly understood. We investigated the 9-year change observed in a mixed conifer-hardwood Atlantic forest mosaic that included both mature and selectively logged forest patches in subtropical South America. We used demographic monitoring data within 10 1 ha plots that were subjected to distinct management histories (plots logged until 1955, until 1987, and unlogged) to test the hypothesis that climate change affected forest structure and dynamics differentially depending on past disturbances. We determined the functional group of all species based on life-history affinities as well as many functional traits like leaf size, specific leaf area, wood density, total height, stem slenderness, and seed size data for the 66 most abundant species. Analysis of climate data revealed that minimum temperatures and rainfall have been increasing in the last few decades of the 20th century. Floristic composition differed mainly with logging history categories, with only minor change over the nine annual census intervals. Aboveground biomass increased in all plots, but increases were higher in mature unlogged forests, which showed signs of forest growth associated with increased CO2, temperature, and rainfall/treefall gap disturbance at the same time. Logged forests showed arrested succession as indicated by reduced abundances of Pioneers and biomass-accumulators like Large Seeded Pioneers and Araucaria, as well as reduced functional diversity. Management actions aimed at creating regeneration opportunities for long-lived pioneers are needed to restore community functional diversity, and ecosystem services such as increased aboveground biomass accumulation. We conclude that the effects of climate drivers on the dynamics of Brazilian mixed Atlantic forests vary with land-use legacies, and can differ importantly from the ones prevalent in better known tropical forests.
| S-EPMC6662394 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Subarctic ecosystems are subjected to increasing nitrogen (N) enrichment and disturbances that induce particularly strong effects on plant communities when occurring in combination. There is little experimental evidence on the longevity of these effects. We applied N-fertilization (40 kg urea-N ha-1 year-1 for 4 years) and disturbance (removal of vegetation and organic soil layer on one occasion) in two plant communities in a subarctic forest-tundra ecotone in northern Finland. Within the first four years, N-fertilization and disturbance increased the share of deciduous dwarf shrubs and graminoids at the expense of evergreen dwarf shrubs. Individual treatments intensified the other's effect resulting in the strongest increase in graminoids under combined N-fertilization and disturbance. The re-analysis of the plant communities 15 years after cessation of N-fertilization showed an even higher share of graminoids. 18 years after disturbance, the total vascular plant abundance was still substantially lower and the share of graminoids higher. At the same point, the plant community composition was the same under disturbance as under combined N-fertilization and disturbance, indicating that multiple perturbations no longer reinforced the other's effect. Yet, complex interactions between N-fertilization and disturbance were still detected in the soil. We found higher organic N under disturbance and lower microbial N under combined N-fertilization and disturbance, which suggests a lower bioavailability of N sources for soil microorganisms. Our findings support that the effects of enhanced nutrients and disturbance on subarctic vegetation persist over decadal timescales. However, they also highlight the complexity of plant-soil interactions that drive subarctic ecosystem responses to multiple perturbations across varying timescales.
| S-EPMC10980618 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Disturbances are key drivers of forest ecosystem dynamics, and forests are well adapted to their natural disturbance regimes. However, as a result of climate change, disturbance frequency is expected to increase in the future in many regions. It is not yet clear how such changes might affect forest ecosystems, and which mechanisms contribute to (current and future) disturbance resilience. We studied a 6364-ha landscape in the western Cascades of Oregon, USA, to investigate how patches of remnant old-growth trees (as one important class of biological legacies) affect the resilience of forest ecosystems to disturbance. Using the spatially explicit, individual-based, forest landscape model iLand, we analyzed the effect of three different levels of remnant patches (0%, 12%, and 24% of the landscape) on 500-year recovery trajectories after a large, high-severity wildfire. In addition, we evaluated how three different levels of fire frequency modulate the effects of initial legacies. We found that remnant live trees enhanced the recovery of total ecosystem carbon (TEC) stocks after disturbance, increased structural complexity of forest canopies, and facilitated the recolonization of late-seral species (LSS). Legacy effects were most persistent for indicators of species composition (still significant 500 years after disturbance), while TEC (i.e., a measure of ecosystem functioning) was least affected, with no significant differences among legacy scenarios after 236 years. Compounding disturbances were found to dampen legacy effects on all indicators, and higher initial legacy levels resulted in elevated fire severity in the second half of the study period. Overall, disturbance frequency had a stronger effect on ecosystem properties than the initial level of remnant old-growth trees. A doubling of the historically observed fire frequency to a mean fire return interval of 131 years reduced TEC by 10.5% and lowered the presence of LSS on the landscape by 18.1% on average, demonstrating that an increase in disturbance frequency (a potential climate change effect) may considerably alter the structure, composition, and functioning of forest landscapes. Our results indicate that live tree legacies are an important component of disturbance resilience, underlining the potential of retention forestry to address challenges in ecosystem management.
| S-EPMC4820056 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Long-term ecological research can resolve effects of disturbance on ecosystem dynamics by capturing the scale of disturbance and interactions with environmental changes. To quantify how disturbances interact with long-term directional changes (sea-level rise, freshwater restoration), we studied 17 yr of monthly dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total nitrogen (TN), and phosphorus (TP) concentrations and bacterioplankton productivity across freshwater-to-marine estuary gradients exposed to multiple disturbance events (e.g., droughts, fire, hurricanes, and low-temperature anomalies) and long-term increases in water levels. By studying two neighboring drainages that differ in hydrologic connectivity, we additionally tested how disturbance legacies are shaped by hydrologic connectivity. We predicted that disturbance events would interact with long-term increases in water levels in freshwater and marine ecosystems to increase spatiotemporal similarity (i.e., synchrony) of organic matter, nutrients, and microbial activities. Wetlands along the larger, deeper, and tidally influenced Shark River Slough (SRS) drainage had higher and more variable DOC, TN, and TP concentrations than wetlands along the smaller, shallower, tidally restricted Taylor River Slough/Panhandle (TS/Ph) drainage. Along SRS, DOC concentrations declined with proximity to coast, and increased in magnitude and variability following drought and flooding in 2015 and a hurricane in 2017. Along TS/Ph, DOC concentrations varied by site (higher in marine than freshwater wetlands) but not year. In both drainages, increases in TN from upstream freshwater marshes occurred following fire in 2008 and droughts in 2010 and 2015, whereas downstream increases in TP occurred with coastal storm surge from hurricanes in 2005 and 2017. Decreases in DOC:TN and DOC:TP were explained by increased TN and TP. Increases in bacterioplankton productivity occurred throughout both drainages following low-temperature events (2010 and 2011) and a hurricane (2017). Long-term TN and TP concentrations and bacterioplankton productivity were correlated (r > 0.5) across a range of sampling distances (1-50 km), indicating spatiotemporal synchrony. DOC concentrations were not synchronized across space or time. Our study advances disturbance ecology theory by illustrating how disturbance events interact with long-term environmental changes and hydrologic connectivity to determine the magnitude and extent of disturbance legacies. Understanding disturbance legacies will enhance prediction and enable more effective management of rapidly changing ecosystems.
| S-EPMC7317527 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Terrestrial ecosystem models assume that microbial communities respond instantaneously, or are immediately resilient, to environmental change. Here we tested this assumption by quantifying the resilience of a leaf litter community to changes in precipitation or nitrogen availability. By manipulating composition within a global change experiment, we decoupled the legacies of abiotic parameters versus that of the microbial community itself. After one rainy season, more variation in fungal composition could be explained by the original microbial inoculum than the litterbag environment (18% versus 5.5% of total variation). This compositional legacy persisted for 3 years, when 6% of the variability in fungal composition was still explained by the microbial origin. In contrast, bacterial composition was generally more resilient than fungal composition. Microbial functioning (measured as decomposition rate) was not immediately resilient to the global change manipulations; decomposition depended on both the contemporary environment and rainfall the year prior. Finally, using metagenomic sequencing, we showed that changes in precipitation, but not nitrogen availability, altered the potential for bacterial carbohydrate degradation, suggesting why the functional consequences of the two experiments may have differed. Predictions of how terrestrial ecosystem processes respond to environmental change may thus be improved by considering the legacies of microbial communities.
| S-EPMC5270563 | biostudies-literature