No abstract

Environmental characteristics of an invaded environment can predict the invasion success of a species, depending on its habits and life strategies. Cichla kelberi is a visual and voracious predator introduced in the upper Paraná River floodplain, an area that suffers with several upstream dams that caused many environmental changes over the years (e.g. increased water transparency). As this species is a pre-adapted species to environments that presents high water transparency, our main goal was to test the hypothesis that variables related to the underwater visibility would be important drivers of the successful invasion of C. kelberi in the upper Paraná River floodplain. We predict that turbidity (proxy of water transparency) is one of the major limnological determinants of occurrence and abundance of C. kelberi. Individuals of the invasive species and seven limnological variables were sampled quarterly between February 2000 and November 2018. This long-term data is part of the sixth site of the Brazilian Long Term Ecological Program (PELD). We fitted two regression models to all occurrence and abundance data (response variables) against the limnological variables (explanatory variables). For occurrence data, we fitted a Generalized Linear Mixed Model and for abundance data, we fitted a Linear Mixed Effects Model. The occurrence data of C. kelberi showed that turbidity and dissolved oxygen were the variables that most influenced the presence of this species, negatively and positively, respectively. The abundance data showed that dissolved oxygen and concentration of chlorophyll-a were the ones that most influenced the abundance of this species, negatively and positively, respectively. Our findings showed that besides turbidity, other limnological variables were also determinants for the occurrence and abundance of C. kelberi. Therefore, our results provided important

Resource partitioning has an essential role in interspecific relations, especially in congener species, which share many morphological traits. In some places, small characids coexist through resource partitioning, which may reduce their interspecific competition. Astyanax species (e.g., Astyanax minor, Astyanax gymnodontus and Astyanax bifasciatus), for example, coexist in different water bodies from the Iguaçu River basin. These species have high phenotypic plasticity and many morphologic specializations that allow them to live in different habitats. Based on evidences that these species modified their feeding habits because of changes in resource availability in Iguaçu River, this study tested two hypotheses: (a) there are differences in head morphology, number of teeth and number of gill rakers among the species of Astyanax; and (b) there are differences in gill arch and gill raker morphology among the species of Astyanax, which may favour their trophic resource partitioning in Iguaçu River. The head morphological traits and quantitative morphological characters were summarized in a principal coordinates analysis (PCoA), and the analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) showed significant differences among species. Gill morphological measurements were analysed through analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and it also showed significant differences in gill arch and gill raker morphology among species. Therefore, the analysis of ecomorphological traits related to trophic habits revealed some differences that may suggest a tendency of reducing competition for trophic resources in the Iguaçu River basin.

No abstract