The vulnerability of species to range expansions by predators can be predicted using historical species associations and body size

Abstract

ResearchCite this article: Alofs KM, Jackson DA. 2015 The vulnerability of species to range expansions by predators can be predicted using historical species associations and body size. Climate change threatens species directly through environmental changes and indirectly through its effects on species interactions. We need tools to predict which species are most vulnerable to these threats. Pairwise species associations and body size are simple but promising predictors of the relative impact of species introduced outside of their historical ranges. We examined the vulnerability of 30 fish species to the impacts of three centrarchid predators that are being introduced to lakes north of their historical range boundaries. Species that were negatively associated with each centrarchid in their historical range were more likely to be lost from lakes with centrarchid introductions. Total body length was most important in predicting impact for the most gape-limited predator. At the regional scale, our method identifies those species most vulnerable to introductions facilitated by climate change and can easily be applied to a range of taxa undergoing range expansions.

Species‐pair associations, null models, and tests of mechanisms structuring ecological communities

“…, MacRae and Jackson , Englund et al. , Alofs and Jackson ). Furthermore, our analysis compared the effect of multiple predatory species on multiple prey species to generate insights on both individual species pairs and predator–prey relationships more generally.…”

The influence of variability in species trait data on community‐level ecological prediction and inference

“…; Table , Supporting Information, Appendix S1). I also collected data on the vulnerability of 29 species to Rock Bass introductions; the relative risk ratio associated with these predator introductions was calculated from two‐by‐two contingency tables created from a data set of 1551 Ontario lakes also sampled in two time periods (from Alofs and Jackson ; Table , Supporting Information, Appendix S1). The relative risk ratio measures the impact of introduction as the probability of each resident species “loss” (presence during a historical survey and absence during a contemporary survey) given introduction and establishment of Amboplites rupestris (Rock Bass) over the probability of loss given no establishment, that is, background variation.…”

“…Further, body size has been used to infer the direct and indirect impacts of human activities including hunting and fishing (Jennings and Blanchard ; Fenberg and Roy ), land‐use changes (Mulder and Elser ), introduced species (Ness et al. ; Alofs and Jackson ), and climate warming (Gardner et al. ; Alofs et al.…”

Conceptualising the interactive effects of climate change and biological invasions on subarctic freshwater fish

“…Increasing temperatures in subarctic regions are consistently associated with poleward range expansions of temperate organisms (Hickling, Roy, Hill, Fox, & Thomas, ; Parmesan & Yohe, ). Subarctic regions are experiencing widespread poleward invasions of warmer water‐adapted freshwater fish species such as Cyprinids (e.g., ide Leuciscus idus , roach Rutilus rutilus ), Percids (e.g., ruffe , Gymnocephalus cernua , European perch, Perca fluviatilis ), and Centrarchids (e.g., smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu , largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides ) (Alofs & Jackson, ; Chu et al., ; Comte et al., ; Graham & Harrod, ; Sharma, Jackson, Minns, & Shuter, ; Van Zuiden, Chen, Stefanoff, Lopez, & Sharma, ). As invasive species frequently have strong ecological impacts (Cucherousset & Olden, ; Simon & Townsend, ), effects of climate change on subarctic freshwaters may be due to indirect mechanisms mediated by poleward invasion of warm‐water‐adapted fish species.…”

“…For example, smallmouth bass are predicted to increase their range by 55%–422% by 2070 in Ontario, Canada, based on 126 climate scenarios (Van Zuiden et al., ). Pike ( Esox lucius ), ruffe, European perch, yellow perch ( Perca flavescens ), smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, roach, and ide have either been observed or predicted to expand their range into subarctic regions due to temperature increases with climate change (Alofs & Jackson, ; Byström et al., ; Hayden et al., ; Henriksson, Wardle, Trygg, Diehl, & Englund, ; Henriksson, Yu, Wardle, Trygg, & Englund, ; Reist et al., ; Sepulveda, Rutz, Ivey, Dunker, & Gross, ).…”