Abstract
Urban streams are impacted by invasion of exotic riparian plants and the accumulation of plastic trash, which alter in-stream litter subsidies, and cause changes that cascade up the aquatic food web. The impacts of these factors on urban streams is poorly understood. We compared decay rates and invertebrate colonizers of 5 litter pack types in 4 urban streams in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Native Red alder (Alnus rubra) and Sitka willow (Salix sitchensis), invasive English ivy (Hedera sp.), Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) and plastic trash (i.e. Styrofoam (polystyrene (PS)), plastic bag (high-density polyethylene (HDPE)), and Mylar (polyethylene terephthalate (PET). We tested 4 hypotheses: 1) exotic ivy and blackberry leaves would decay more slowly than native leaves; 2) exotic ivy and blackberry leaves would attract fewer and less diverse stream invertebrates than native leaves; 3) plastic trash would decay more slowly than leaves; and, 4) plastic trash would attract fewer and less diverse stream invertebrates than leaves. We found no difference between the leaf litter decay rates, however plastic trash decayed more slowly than leaves. Trash decay rates were faster than reported in marine environments, suggesting that plastic trash removal should be a management priority. Stream invertebrates colonized all pack types equally. We observed significant differences in litter decay rates and invertebrate assemblage alpha and Shannon–Wiener diversities across the 4 streams - likely related to differences in stream-specific environmental attributes including flashiness, stream discharge, and biological decay. We conclude that site-specific decay forces supersede litter quality in Pacific Coast urban streams.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Terri LaCourse, Dr. Francis Juanes, Dr. Brian Starzomski, Dr. Manuel A.S. Graca, and four anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We thank Dr. Carri LeRoy and Dr. John Richardson for litter decay study-method advice. We thank Thomas Munson (City of Victoria), Andrew Burger (District of Saanich), Jeanette Mollin and Dale Green (CRD), and Chris Hyde-Lay (District of Oak Bay) for stream-site information and environmental research permitting. We gratefully acknowledge lab space, equipment, and assistance provided by Dr. John Dower, Dr. Barbara Hawkins, Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe, Jonathan Rose, Paulette Wilkins, and Stephen Horak. We thank Annette Boseman, Therese Fraunedorf, Laura Kennedy, Dan Durston, Nova Hanson, Piata Marques, Kira Bukeboom, Misha Warbanski, and Tyler Kennedy for lab and field assistance. Project funding was provided by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship, University of Victoria President’s Research Scholarship, and University of Victoria Amelia Leith Memorial Fellowship to KK; a University of Victoria start up grant and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery grant to RES.
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KK and RES designed the study; KK performed the study and analyzed data; RES supervised the experiment and data analysis; KK and RES wrote the manuscript.
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Supplemental methods, tables, and figures for this paper can be found in the Appendix. Data and R code for this paper available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.46b47h1
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Kennedy, K.T.M., El-Sabaawi, R.W. Decay patterns of invasive plants and plastic trash in urban streams. Urban Ecosyst 21, 817–830 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0771-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0771-9