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Invasive cordgrass facilitates epifaunal communities in a Chinese marsh

Biological Invasions volume 17, pages 205–217 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Structural aspects of the environment frequently influence the taxonomic and functional diversity of associated ecological communities. Spartina alterniflora and Phragmites australis both are structure-forming species in salt marshes but reciprocal invaders. Epifaunal communities on invasive Phragmites on the east coast of North America are reduced relative to native Spartina. But, the impacts of invasive Spartina on epiphytic communities in Phragmites dominated marshes in the Western Pacific are unknown. We examined epifauna on live and dead stems of invasive S. alterniflora and native P. australis in the Yangtze River estuary in China. Epiphytic invertebrate abundance on S. alterniflora was ~5× greater than on P. australis, suggesting that S. alterniflora supports more abundant epiphytic communities than P. australis, irrespective of region. For both live and dead stems, most epifaunal groups, including Namatoda, Copepoda, Halacarida and Oligochaeta, were more abundant on S. alterniflora than P. australis. Enhanced epifaunal abundance could benefit the nursery function of marshes by increasing secondary production. Dead S. alterniflora were the best habitat for nematodes, especially bacterivores and fungivores. This suggests that differences in litter quality may be important in these nematode communities and that more active biological processes may occur on Spartina influencing nutrient cycling rates.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by National Science and Technology Ministry (2013CB430404), NSFC fund (30930019, 41371258, 41201054). We are grateful to Deborah Neher and Mark Bertness for constructive advice on the manuscript.

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  1. Huili Chen

    Present address: Hangzhou Key Laboratory for Animal Adaptation and Evolution, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 310036, People’s Republic of China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of China

    Huili Chen, Pei Zhang, Bo Li & Jihua Wu

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  1. Huili Chen
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Correspondence to Jihua Wu.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4.

Table 4 Epiphytic nematodes associated with standing live and dead stem material for P. australis (abbreviated as ‘PA’) S. alterniflora (abbreviated as ‘SA’) at each sampling time
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Chen, H., Zhang, P., Li, B. et al. Invasive cordgrass facilitates epifaunal communities in a Chinese marsh. Biol Invasions 17, 205–217 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-014-0720-3

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Keywords

  • Epiphytic invertebrates
  • Nematode
  • Phragmites australis
  • Salt marsh
  • Trophic group