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Impacts of the invasive alga Sargassum muticum on ecosystem functioning and food web structure

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Abstract

Biological invasions have the potential to cause severe alterations to the biodiversity of natural ecosystems. At the same time, variation in the diversity and composition of native communities may have an important influence on the impact of invasions. Here, effects of the invasive Japanese wireweed, Sargassum muticum, were tested across a range of native marine algal assemblages using a combined additive and substitutive design. The invasive alga significantly reduced primary production, an important component of ecosystem functioning, and increased connectance, a key property of the food webs associated with the algal resources. These impacts were mediated by changes in the proportions of intermediate and top species, as well as apparent reductions in faunal species richness and diversity. Some key alterations to faunal species composition (including the arrival of generalist species associated with S. muticum) may have been important in determining these patterns. Overall results suggest that S. muticum not only directly impeded the native algal community, but that these effects extended indirectly to the native fauna and therefore caused major changes throughout the ecosystem.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Judith Kochmann, Emmi Virkki and Jen Coughlan from the GROG group and MarBEE lab at University College Dublin, for assistance with field and laboratory work. We also thank Marina Cunha, Clara Rodrigues and Guy Woodward for valuable comments on the manuscript. TS was supported by an Erasmus training program scholarship. DG was funded by the project SIMBIOSYS (2007-B-CD-1-S1) as part of the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for the Environment (STRIVE) Programme, financed by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013, administered on behalf of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EOG is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow funded by NERC (Grant NE/I009280/1) and was supported by the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology’s EMPOWER initiative during part of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biology and Environmental Science, Science Centre West, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Tânia Salvaterra, Dannielle S. Green, Tasman P. Crowe & Eoin J. O’Gorman

  2. Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Tânia Salvaterra

  3. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Eoin J. O’Gorman

  4. Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire, SL5 7PY, UK

    Eoin J. O’Gorman

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  1. Tânia Salvaterra
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  2. Dannielle S. Green
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Correspondence to Eoin J. O’Gorman.

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Salvaterra, T., Green, D.S., Crowe, T.P. et al. Impacts of the invasive alga Sargassum muticum on ecosystem functioning and food web structure. Biol Invasions 15, 2563–2576 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0473-4

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