Invasion dynamics of Ponto-Caspian amphipods leads to changes in invertebrate community structure and function

Biological invasions remain one of the most pressing threats to biodiversity globally, with unprecedented rates of establishment that are unlikely to abate in the future. As such the occurrence of multiple interacting invasive non-native species (INNS) is becoming more common. Despite this, much of the research on the interaction of multiple INNS is conducted within laboratory settings, with field studies remaining rare or being conducted as one-off sampling. There is therefore a deficit of knowledge pertaining to the natural population trajectories of multiple INNS and the wider ecological implications for the structure and function of the native communities. Here we present multiple years of data collected from a reservoir in the United Kingdom, which has undergone invasion by three congener non-native amphipods. We initially observed the coexistence of Dikerogammarus haemobaphes with Crangonyx pseudogracilis under habitat segregation in the reservoir. However, the following year saw complete displacement of C. pseudogracilis and reduced abundances of D. haemobaphes once the more competitive Dikerogammarus villosus established abundant populations in the reservoir. D. villosus exhibited strong effects for the structure and function of the wider macroinvertebrate community composition in addition to driving reductions in taxa and functional richness. Gastropoda taxa appeared to be unaffected by the invasion dynamics. Significant increases in functional divergence (and less so functional dispersion) values were also observed following D. villosus establishment, with this response metric possibly representing an important tool in detecting stress from biological invasions that we urge scientists to test more extensively. In contrast to D. villosus, D. haemobaphes implications for the wider ecological community appeared to be limited. Importantly, we observed evidence to suggest the presence of boom-bust cycles with the explosion of D. villosus leading to a dramatic drop in their abundances the following year. We believe that the wider ecological implications of their abundant populations were so great that resources were not sufficient within the reservoir to support their abundant populations, leading to the observed population collapses. We call for further studies that investigate the population trajectories and wider ecological implications of multiple non-native species in field settings to further our limited knowledge base.

Automated summary

Biological invasions pose a significant threat to biodiversity, especially when multiple non-native species interact. However, research on the natural population trajectories and ecological implications of multiple non-native species in field settings is limited.