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Productivity, herbivory, and species traits rather than diversity influence invasibility of experimental phytoplankton communities

  • Community ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Biological invasions are a major threat to natural biodiversity; hence, understanding the mechanisms underlying invasibility (i.e., the susceptibility of a community to invasions by new species) is crucial. Invasibility of a resident community may be affected by a complex but hitherto hardly understood interplay of (1) productivity of the habitat, (2) diversity, (3) herbivory, and (4) the characteristics of both invasive and resident species. Using experimental phytoplankton microcosms, we investigated the effect of nutrient supply and species diversity on the invasibility of resident communities for two functionally different invaders in the presence or absence of an herbivore. With increasing nutrient supply, increased herbivore abundance indicated enhanced phytoplankton biomass production, and the invasion success of both invaders showed a unimodal pattern. At low nutrient supply (i.e., low influence of herbivory), the invasibility depended mainly on the competitive abilities of the invaders, whereas at high nutrient supply, the susceptibility to herbivory dominated. This resulted in different optimum nutrient levels for invasion success of the two species due to their individual functional traits. To test the effect of diversity on invasibility, a species richness gradient was generated by random selection from a resident species pool at an intermediate nutrient level. Invasibility was not affected by species richness; instead, it was driven by the functional traits of the resident and/or invasive species mediated by herbivore density. Overall, herbivory was the driving factor for invasibility of phytoplankton communities, which implies that other factors affecting the intensity of herbivory (e.g., productivity or edibility of primary producers) indirectly influence invasions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Melanie Hartwich and Angelika Wöhler for experimental assistance and Frank Schurr, Helmut Hillebrand, and Francisco de Castro for valuable comments on the manuscript, as well as Sandra Berger for improving the English. We also thank Claudia Wiedner for providing the strain of C. raciborskii. This study was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, GA 401/10-1).

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  1. Andrea Schmidtke

    Present address: Department of Applied Plant Ecology, Biocenter Klein Flottbek, University of Hamburg, Ohnhorststr. 18, 22609, Hamburg, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469, Potsdam, Germany

    Erik Sperfeld, Andrea Schmidtke, Ursula Gaedke & Guntram Weithoff

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  1. Erik Sperfeld
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  2. Andrea Schmidtke
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Correspondence to Erik Sperfeld.

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Communicated by Ulrich Sommer.

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Sperfeld, E., Schmidtke, A., Gaedke, U. et al. Productivity, herbivory, and species traits rather than diversity influence invasibility of experimental phytoplankton communities. Oecologia 163, 997–1010 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1594-4

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