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Using stable isotopes to analyse extinction risks and reintroduction opportunities of native species in invaded ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Invasive non-native species have pervasive impacts on native biodiversity, including population extirpations and species extinctions. Identifying reasons why a population of a native species is extirpated following an invasion often relies on literature-based results of anecdotal observations. The well-established schemes of existing risk assessments for invasive species assume that a species' information (e.g. impacts or behavioural and biological traits) can be projected from one area to another to estimate the potential impact of a species in another environment. We used stable isotope data (?¹³C, ?¹⁵N) from both invaded and uninvaded communities to predict such invasion impacts by reconstructing trophic relationships. This approach was tested on a community within a protected lake in Northern Spain where, following the introductions of non-native species, the last resident native species (the common tench Tinca tinca, the European eel Anguilla anguilla, and the whirligig beetle Gyrinus sp.) had been extirpated. Through the application of this novel approach, we found evidence that native species' declines were related to direct predation by and resource overlap with non-native species, which occurred in conjunction with habitat modification. Using this approach, we outlined the mechanisms involved in the extirpation of native species in the post-invasion period. To compensate for losses of native species induced by invasions of non-native species, native species reintroductions might be an appropriate tool. For this, we further suggested and discussed a novel approach that predicts the outcome of arising interactions by superimposing stable isotope data from alternative sources to better estimate the success of native species´ reintroductions.

SUBMITTER: Haubrock PJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7728764 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using stable isotopes to analyse extinction risks and reintroduction opportunities of native species in invaded ecosystems.

Haubrock Phillip J PJ Balzani Paride P Britton J Robert JR Haase Peter P

Scientific reports 20201210 1

Invasive non-native species have pervasive impacts on native biodiversity, including population extirpations and species extinctions. Identifying reasons why a population of a native species is extirpated following an invasion often relies on literature-based results of anecdotal observations. The well-established schemes of existing risk assessments for invasive species assume that a species' information (e.g. impacts or behavioural and biological traits) can be projected from one area to anoth ...[more]

PMID: 33303830

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Project description:Many drylands have been converted from perennial-dominated ecosystems to invaded, annual-dominated, fire-prone systems. Innovative approaches are needed to disrupt fire-invasion feedbacks. Targeted grazing can reduce invasive plant abundance and associated flammable fuels, and fuelbreaks can limit fire spread. Restored strips of native plants (native greenstrips) can function as fuelbreaks while also providing forage and habitat benefits. However, methods for establishing native greenstrips in invaded drylands are poorly developed. Moreover, if fuels reduction and greenstrip establishment are to proceed simultaneously, it is critical to understand how targeted grazing interacts with plant establishment. We determined how targeted grazing treatments interacted with seed rate, spatial planting arrangement (mixtures vs. monoculture strips), seed coating technology, and species identity (five native grasses) to affect standing biomass and seeded plant density in experimental greenstrips. We monitored for two growing seasons to document effects during the seedling establishment phase. Across planting treatments, ungrazed paddocks had the highest second-year seeded plant densities and the highest standing biomass. Paddocks grazed in fall of the second growing season had fewer seedlings than paddocks grazed in spring, five months later. High seed rates minimized negative effects of grazing on plant establishment. Among seeded species, Elymus trachycaulus and Poa secunda had the highest second-year densities, but achieved this via different pathways. Elymus trachycaulus produced the most first-year seedlings, but declined in response to grazing, whereas P. secunda had moderate first-year establishment but high survival across grazing treatments. We identified clear tradeoffs between reducing fuel loads and establishing native plants in invaded sagebrush steppe; similar tradeoffs may exist in other invaded drylands. In our system, tradeoffs were minimized by boosting seed rates, using grazing-tolerant species, and delaying grazing. In invaded ecosystems, combining targeted grazing with high-input restoration may create opportunities to limit wildfire risk while also shifting vegetation toward more desirable species.

Project description:Stable potassium isotopes are one of the emerging non-traditional isotope systems enabled in recent years by the advance of Multi-Collector Inductively-Coupled-Plasma Mass-Spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). In this review, we first summarize the geochemical and cosmochemical properties of K, its major reservoirs, and the analytical methods of K isotopes. Following this, we review recent literature on K isotope applications in the fields of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. Geochemically, K is a highly incompatible lithophile element, and a highly soluble, biophile element. The isotopic fractionation of K is relatively small during magmatic processes such as partial melting and fractional crystallization, whereas during low-temperature and biological processes fractionation is considerably larger. This resolvable fractionation has made K isotopes promising tracers for a variety of Earth and environmental processes, including chemical weathering, low-temperature alteration of igneous rocks, reverse weathering, and the recycling of sediments into the mantle during subduction. Sorption and interactions of aqueous K with different clay minerals during cation exchange and clay formation are likely to be of fundamental significance in generating much of the K isotope variability seen in samples from the Earth surface and samples carrying recycled surface materials from the deep Earth. The magnitude of this fractionation is process- and mineral-dependent. Comprehensive quantification of pertinent K isotope fractionation factors is currently lacking and urgently needed. Significant fractionation during biological activities, such as plant uptake, demonstrates the potential utility of K isotopes in the study of the nutrient cycle and its relation to the climate and various ecosystems, enabling new and largely unexplored avenues for future research. Of significant importance to the cosmochemistry community, K is a moderately volatile element with large variations in K/U ratio observed among chondrites and planetary materials. As this indicates different degrees of volatile depletion, it has become a fundamental chemical signature of both chondritic and planetary bodies. This volatile depletion has been attributed to various processes such as solar nebula condensation, mixing of volatile-rich and -poor reservoirs, planetary accretional volatilization via impacts, and/or magma ocean degassing. While K isotopes have the potential to distinguish these different processes, the current results are still highly debated. A good correlation between the K isotope compositions of four differentiated bodies (Earth, Mars, Moon, and Vesta) and their masses suggests a ubiquitous volatile depletion mechanism during the formation of the terrestrial planets. It is still unknown whether any of the K isotopic variation among chondrites and differentiated bodies can be attributed to inherited signatures of mass-independent isotopic anomalies.

Dataset Information

Using stable isotopes to analyse extinction risks and reintroduction opportunities of native species in invaded ecosystems.

Publications

Using stable isotopes to analyse extinction risks and reintroduction opportunities of native species in invaded ecosystems.

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