Landscape corridors can increase invasion by an exotic species and reduce diversity of native species

Resasco, Julian; Haddad, Nick M.; Orrock, John L.; Shoemaker, DeWayne; Brudvig, Lars A.; Damschen, Ellen I.; Tewksbury, Joshua J.; Levey, Douglas J.

doi:10.1890/14-0169.1

Cited by 76 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…; Resasco et al. ). Understanding that corridors can reduce the negative genetic effects of habitat fragmentation for entire communities has important conservation and management implications: determining how to best apply these principals in practice will be the next big conservation challenge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Habitat corridors facilitate genetic resilience irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes

Christie

Knowles

2015

Evolutionary Applications

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Corridors are frequently proposed to connect patches of habitat that have become isolated due to human-mediated alterations to the landscape. While it is understood that corridors can facilitate dispersal between patches, it remains unknown whether corridors can mitigate the negative genetic effects for entire communities modified by habitat fragmentation. These negative genetic effects, which include reduced genetic diversity, limit the potential for populations to respond to selective agents such as disease epidemics and global climate change. We provide clear evidence from a forward-time, agent-based model (ABM) that corridors can facilitate genetic resilience in fragmented habitats across a broad range of species dispersal abilities and population sizes. Our results demonstrate that even modest increases in corridor width decreased the genetic differentiation between patches and increased the genetic diversity and effective population size within patches. Furthermore, we document a trade-off between corridor quality and corridor design whereby populations connected by high-quality habitat (i.e., low corridor mortality) are more resilient to suboptimal corridor design (e.g., long and narrow corridors). The ABM also revealed that species interactions can play a greater role than corridor design in shaping the genetic responses of populations to corridors. These results demonstrate how corridors can provide long-term conservation benefits that extend beyond targeted taxa and scale up to entire communities irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Habitat corridors facilitate genetic resilience irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes

Christie

Knowles

2015

Evolutionary Applications

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“…; habitat quality, Martin & Blackburn ; patch connectivity, Resasco et al . ; elevation gradients, Silva et al . ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating estimators of species richness: the importance of considering statistical error rates

et al. 2015

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1. The performance of species richness estimators can be highly variable. Evaluating the accuracy and precision of different estimators for different assemblages is common in the ecological literature, but estimator performance is rarely measured in terms of research goals such as detecting patterns in diversity. 2. We evaluated the efficacy of nonparametric richness estimators to detect changes (i.e. type-I and type-II error rates) in species richness using two experimental designs: a block design and a trend analysis. We also evaluated estimator efficacy across a variety of species-abundance distributions, species number and sample sizes. The evaluation was performed using simulated data that mimicked the qualities of real data to ensure real-world relevance. 3. We found that the bias and precision of all estimators evaluated had high sensitivity to sample size and shifts in the species-abundance distribution. Importantly, all estimators demonstrated elevated type-I error rates when the species-abundance distribution varied. These inflated type-I error rates resulted in spurious conclusions about patterns in species richness. 4. Results suggest that caution should be taken when using nonparametric estimators to detect pattern in species richness. Furthermore, estimator evaluations should always include measures of type-I and type-II error rates. These quantities can reveal the inference consequences of the dependency of estimator bias and precision on community and sampling characteristics.

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“…The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta (hereafter RIFA), is a devastating invasive that dominates disturbed landscapes across the southeastern United States (Porter & Savignano, 1990;Tschinkel, 2006;Resasco et al, 2014). We explore how RIFA impacts an urban ant assemblage by first quantifying its potential power to outcompete native species by contrasting its foraging biomass to that of its potential competitors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of temperature in competition and persistence of an invaded ant assemblage

Roeder

Kaspari

2018

Ecological Entomology

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1. To achieve numerical dominance, an ectotherm consumer requires a sizeable abiotic window in which it can forage. Here we explore how one abiotic factor, temperature, provides opportunity and regulates the impact of the invasive red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, on an urban ant assemblage.2. We first quantified S. invicta's ability to outcompete native species by contrasting its foraging biomass to that of its potential competitors. In doing so, we found that S. invicta deployed more ant biomass at baits than the estimated whole colony biomass of three of the four co-occurring native species. It did so across c. 75% of the hours in a summer day, those hours below its thermal maximum of 49 ∘ C. Higher thermal maxima allowed two native species to avoid encountering workers of S. invicta.3. Exclosure experiments revealed that a third species, Dorymyrmex flavus, more similar in body size and thermal tolerance to S. invicta, was competitively suppressed by the invasive. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis suggests that D. flavus' persistence is likely due to dietary differences. 4. Although thermal and dietary traits help predict how species coexist in this invaded assemblage, one key to S. invicta's success is likely to be its ability to forage in all but 6 h of a summer's day.

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Landscape corridors can increase invasion by an exotic species and reduce diversity of native species

Cited by 76 publications

References 51 publications

Habitat corridors facilitate genetic resilience irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes

Habitat corridors facilitate genetic resilience irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes

Evaluating estimators of species richness: the importance of considering statistical error rates

The role of temperature in competition and persistence of an invaded ant assemblage

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