Abstract
The consequences of plant introductions into ecosystems are frequently reported from terrestrial environments, but little is known about the effects on ecosystem functioning caused by non-native primary producers in marine systems. In this study we explored the effects of the invasion by the two filamentous red algae Heterosiphonia japonica and Bonnemaisonia hamifera on the primary production of seaweed communities by using single and mixed cultures of non-native and native red algae. The experiments were conducted both in the presence and absence of herbivores. Biomass production of the invaded community increased more than four times in mixed cultures with H. japonica, while introduction by B. hamifera had no significant effect. The different impact on community production could be explained by differences in life history strategies between the invaders; H. japonica grew considerably faster than the native seaweeds which directly increased the community production, while B. hamifera showed a relatively slow growth rate and therefore had no effect. From previous studies it is known that B. hamifera produces a highly deterrent, but also costly, chemical defence. The assessment of survival and growth of a native generalist herbivore further corroborated that the biomass produced by B. hamifera constitutes a very low-quality food, whereas the performance of herbivores on a diet of H. japonica was comparable to that on native algal diets. In summary, this study demonstrates that successful invaders belonging to the same functional group (filamentous red algae) may have distinctly different impacts on productivity in the recipient community, depending on their specific life history traits.
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Acknowledgments
We thank G. Cervin, R. Svensson and F. Baumgartner for field assistance and P. Jonsson for advice on analysis of diversity effects. We also want to thank the staff at the Tjärnö Laboratory (Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences) for practical assistance and two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the manuscript. The work was performed within the Linnaeus Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology (http://www.cemeb.science.gu.se/), and the Centre for Marine Chemical Ecology (http://www.cemace.science.gu.se/), at the University of Gothenburg and funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas (contract no. 217-2007-534 to S. A. W.) and a Linnaeus grant from the Swedish Research Council VR (contract no. 621-2011-5630 to H. P.).
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Communicated by Elena Litchman.
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Sagerman, J., Enge, S., Pavia, H. et al. Divergent ecological strategies determine different impacts on community production by two successful non-native seaweeds. Oecologia 175, 937–946 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2938-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2938-2