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Native species behaviour mitigates the impact of habitat-forming invasive seaweed

  • Global change ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Habitat-forming invasive species cause large, novel changes to the abiotic environment. These changes may elicit important behavioural responses in native fauna, yet little is known about mechanisms driving this behaviour and how such trait-mediated responses influence the fitness of native species. Low dissolved oxygen is a key abiotic change created by the habitat-forming invasive seaweed, Caulerpa taxifolia, which influences an important behavioural response (burrowing depth) in the native infaunal bivalve Anadara trapezia. In Caulerpa-colonised areas, Anadara often emerged completely from the sediment, and we experimentally demonstrate that water column hypoxia beneath the Caulerpa canopy is the mechanism instigating this “pop-up” behaviour. Importantly, pop-up in Caulerpa allowed similar survivorship to that in unvegetated sediment; however, when we prevented Anadara from popping-up, they suffered >50% mortality in just 1 month. Our findings not only highlight the substantial environmental alteration by Caulerpa, but also an important role for the behaviour of native species in mitigating the effects of habitat-forming invasive species.

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Acknowledgments

Support was provided by the Institute for Conservation Biology, University of Wollongong to J.T.W., L.P.K. and J.E.B.; the National Geographic Society to J.E.B.; and the University of Technology-Sydney to P.E.G. Comments from Geoffrey Trussell and three anonymous reviewers greatly improved the previous draft of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. James E. Byers

    Present address: Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Conservation Biology and School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2522, Australia

    Jeffrey T. Wright & Loni P. Koukoumaftsis

  2. National Centre for Marine Conservation and Resource Sustainability, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, P.O. Box 986, Launceston, 7250, Australia

    Jeffrey T. Wright

  3. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    James E. Byers

  4. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Peter J. Ralph & Paul E. Gribben

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  1. Jeffrey T. Wright
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  2. James E. Byers
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  3. Loni P. Koukoumaftsis
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  4. Peter J. Ralph
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  5. Paul E. Gribben
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey T. Wright.

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Communicated by Geoffrey Trussell.

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Wright, J.T., Byers, J.E., Koukoumaftsis, L.P. et al. Native species behaviour mitigates the impact of habitat-forming invasive seaweed. Oecologia 163, 527–534 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1608-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1608-2

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