Abstract
Marine invasive species are pervasive across the world’s coastal regions. Nevertheless, empirical quantification of their ecological effects remains limited. Here, we elucidate the interaction of the invasive silver-cheeked toadfish, Lagocephalus sceleratus, with the fish community of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, a hotspot for marine biological invasions. We deployed 88 underwater stereo-video systems across the Israeli continental shelf and upper slope. From this data, we quantified the change in fish behavior in the absence and presence of L. sceleratus. We further supported our findings by analyzing L. sceleratus gut contents. Our results indicated that the presence of L. sceleratus significantly deterred other non-indigenous species (NIS) and we recorded multiple NIS escape behaviors (fleeing, covering beneath sand or algae, or using camouflage). However, indigenous species (IS), for the most part, remained indifferent to L. sceleratus’ presence. Furthermore, analysis of gut contents supported the visual surveys and revealed that L. sceleratus primarily feed on NIS, including other non-indigenous pufferfish species. Our findings suggest that harmful invasive species may not necessarily be detrimental to IS. At the same time, the apparent threat by L. sceleratus may have ecological impacts on other NIS, especially invasive pufferfishes which are highly poisonous and are suspected to have few predators in the Mediterranean Sea.
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The datasets in this current study have not been released as they are part of an ongoing field work. They may be requested from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Shahar Malamud for his assistance at sea and logistic support throughout the field work. We thank James Seager for his technical support and rapid response with CAL, EventMeasure, and the design of camera frames. We thank Dr. Shevy Bat-Sheva Rothman for her dedicated help in identifying some of the species in the videos. We thank Prof. Bella S. Galil for her assistance in gut content identification. We thank Daphna Shapiro Goldberg for her comments on the manuscript.
Funding
SC received partial funding from the Mediterranean Sea Research Center of Israel (SC). JB received funding from the Grant for Tel-Aviv University center for Artificial intelligence and Data science (TAD) in collaboration with Google.
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SC collected the data, conceived the study, and planned it. SC and GDB analyzed the videos. SC conducted the statistical analysis. SC, GDB, and JB wrote the first draft. NY and NS conducted the gut contents analysis. JB supervised the findings of this work. All authors read, commented on, and approved the final manuscript.
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Chaikin, S., De-Beer, G., Yitzhak, N. et al. The invasive silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus) predominantly impacts the behavior of other non-indigenous species in the Eastern Mediterranean. Biol Invasions 25, 983–990 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02972-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02972-7