Recent biological invasion shapes species recognition and aggressive behaviour in a native species: A behavioural experiment using robots in the field

Abstract

A million species world-wide are threatened with extinction and biological invasions figure among the principal drivers of this biodiversity decline (IPBES, 2019). This threat is further amplified by globalization and global change which blur the natural distribution limits between species. As a consequence, the number of new interactions between native and invasive species has soared. But while the first years of native-invasive species interactions often determine their outcome (Puth & Post, 2005), biological invasions are rarely tracked from their beginning. Thus, understanding how native species respond to novel biological invasions and how the outcome of these interactions can affect future coexistence or extinction is of general interest.When two species enter into contact, they may interact directly through agonistic behaviours, which may negatively affect one or both species. These direct interactions are defined as behavioural interference and may place constraints on species coexistence

Global potential distribution prediction of Xanthium italicum based on Maxent model

“…Moreover, because alien species usually spread from one or several locations of the earliest invasion, in a specific time, the ecological characteristics of alien invasive species in the introduction area are difficult to reflect the complete ecological needs of species. Using the non-equilibrium distribution data of the intrusion site, especially the early distribution data, there will be an error in the prediction of suitable growth areas 4 , 66 . It may be more accurate to use the equilibrium distribution data of invasive regions to predict other suitable growth areas.…”

“…With the rapid development of economic globalization, international trade exchanges and human activities are becoming more and more frequent, alien invasive species are expanding at an unprecedented rate 1 – 3 . The resulting ecological problems and increasing risks of biological invasion have caused huge eco-environmental hazards and economic losses all over the world 4 , 5 . The biological invasion has become a great challenge for human beings.…”

Climate anomalies and competition reduce establishment success during island colonization

“…Slender anoles and Gaige's anoles likely compete with one another, as these species are similar in body size, are both generalist arthropod predators, and their habitat use (perch height) overlaps (Figure 3). These are conditions that are commonly expected to result in competition between species of anoles (Delaney & Warner, 2017; Dufour et al, 2020; Grether et al, 2009; Johnson et al, 2009; Vanhooydonck et al, 2005). Prior to the drought, slender anole population size and density declined most on the two‐species islands (Figure 2).…”

Controlling invasive species with biologically-inspired robots

“…New technologies have offered invaluable tools for studying the ecology and evolution of living creatures (Aguilar et al, 2014) and addressing the seemingly intractable problem of invasive species (Kerr et al, 2017;McCann at al., 2019). In particular, robotics is emerging as a promising approach to studying animal behavior (Krause et al, 2011;Romano et al, 2018;Webb, 2000) and animal invasions (Dufour et al, 2020;Polverino et al, 2019). State-of-the-art robots can move autonomously (Butail et al, 2013;Butail et al, 2014;Gribovskiy et al, 2018;Katzschmann et al, 2018), simulate Figure 1 (A) Mosquitofish and (B) the body morphology and (C) swimming features that we measured in the native mosquitofish's primary predator (Micropterus salmoides) and that we integrated into the design of (D) the biologicallyinspired robotic predator presented in Polverino et al 2019a.…”