Tracking a killer shrimp: Dikerogammarus villosus invasion dynamics across Europe

Soto, I, Cuthbert, RN, Ahmed, DA, Kouba, A, Domisch, S, Marquez, JRG, Beidas, A, Amatulli, G, Kiesel, J, Shen, LQ, Florencio, M, Lima, H, Briski, E, Altermatt, F, Archambaud‐Suard, G, Borza, P, Csabai, Z, Datry, T, Floury, M, Forcellini, M, Fruget, J, Leitner, P, Lizée, M, Maire, A, Ricciardi, A, Schäfer, RB, Stubbington, R ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8475-5109, Van der Lee, GH, Várbíró, G, Verdonschot, RCM, Haase, P and Haubrock, PJ, 2022. Tracking a killer shrimp: Dikerogammarus villosus invasion dynamics across Europe. Diversity and Distributions. ISSN 1366-9516

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Abstract

Aim: Invasive alien species are a growing problem worldwide due to their ecological, economic and human health impacts. The “killer shrimp” Dikerogammarus villosus is a notorious invasive alien amphipod from the Ponto-Caspian region that has invaded many fresh and brackish waters across Europe. Understandings of large-scale population dynamics of highly impactful invaders such as D. villosus are lacking, inhibiting predictions of impact and efficient timing of management strategies. Hence, our aim was to assess trends and dynamics of D. villosus as well as its impacts in freshwater rivers and streams.

Location: Europe.

Methods: We analysed 96 European time series between 1994 and 2019 and identified trends in the relative abundance (i.e. dominance %) of D. villosus in invaded time series, as well as a set of site-specific characteristics to identify drivers and determinants of population changes and invasion dynamics using meta-regression modelling. We also looked at the spread over space and time to estimate the invasion speed (km/year) of D. villosus in Europe. We investigated the impact of D. villosus abundance on recipient community metrics (i.e. abundance, taxa richness, temporal turnover, Shannon diversity and Pielou evenness) using generalized linear models.

Results: Population trends varied across the time series. Nevertheless, community dominance of D. villosus increased over time across all time series. The frequency of occurrences (used as a proxy for invader spread) was well described by a Pareto distribution, whereby we estimated a lag phase (i.e. the time between introduction and spatial expansion) of approximately 28 years, followed by a gradual increase before new occurrences declined rapidly in the long term. D. villosus population change was associated with decreased taxa richness, community turnover and Shannon diversity.

Main Conclusion: Our results show that D. villosus is well-established in European waters and its abundance significantly alters ecological communities. However, the multidecadal lag phase prior to observed spatial expansion suggests that initial introductions by D. villosus are cryptic, thus signalling the need for more effective early detection methods.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Diversity and Distributions
Creators: Soto, I., Cuthbert, R.N., Ahmed, D.A., Kouba, A., Domisch, S., Marquez, J.R.G., Beidas, A., Amatulli, G., Kiesel, J., Shen, L.Q., Florencio, M., Lima, H., Briski, E., Altermatt, F., Archambaud‐Suard, G., Borza, P., Csabai, Z., Datry, T., Floury, M., Forcellini, M., Fruget, J., Leitner, P., Lizée, M., Maire, A., Ricciardi, A., Schäfer, R.B., Stubbington, R., Van der Lee, G.H., Várbíró, G., Verdonschot, R.C.M., Haase, P. and Haubrock, P.J.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 6 November 2022
ISSN: 1366-9516
Identifiers:
Number
Type
10.1111/ddi.13649
DOI
1616401
Other
Rights: © 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions: Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by: Jeremy Silvester
Date Added: 11 Nov 2022 09:42
Last Modified: 11 Nov 2022 09:42
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47376

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