Search for: All records

Ecosystem restoration often aims to create environmental conditions that support communities of native organisms resembling those prior to alteration by humans. One focus of the multi-decade multi-billion-dollar Florida Everglades restoration effort is to recreate hydrologic conditions in Everglades National Park and associated pulses of aquatic animal prey to support the large colonies of seasonally nesting wading birds that are iconic predators in the ecosystem. Recent studies indicate that invasion of predatory Asian Swamp Eels (Monopterus albus/javanensis) has disrupted the hydrology-mediated production of crayfish and some small fishes in the drainage of first invasion (circa 2012). Here we used a complete community dataset of fish and decapods to report changes to the aquatic community diversity, composition, and biomass of prey produced for wading birds. After the establishment of swamp eels in Taylor Slough (Everglades National Park) average fish and decapod richness declined by 25% and communities shifted to a new state dominated by grass shrimp and a few species of small fishes. Swamp eels differentially reduced the production of primary wading bird resources; while there has been a 68% decline in total small fish and decapod biomass, the biomass of the most important prey species for nesting wading birds declined 80%. If similar impacts follow the spread of swamp eels into other major drainages of the Everglades, the invasion may precipitate an ecosystem collapse—fundamentally simplifying and restructuring the aquatic communities of this vast wetland ecosystem and limiting the trophic support for wading bird breeding aggregations that are important indicators for ecological restoration. 

Boom-bust population dynamics are long-recognized phenomena during species invasions, but few studies documented impacts of these dynamic changes. The Florida Everglades is the largest wetland in the United States, is undergoing a multi-decade hydro-restoration effort, and has been invaded by several tropical freshwater fishes. We used a 26-year dataset of small native marsh fishes and decapods to assess potential effects of African Jewelfish (Hemichromis letourneuxi) invasion and compared their effects to those of a more recently invading species, Asian Swamp Eels (Monopterus albus/javanensis), and a long-established non-native species, Mayan Cichlids (Mayaheros urophthalmus). Unlike boom-bust dynamics of jewelfish, swamp eel abundance increased and stabilized over the course of this study. After accounting for effects of hydrologic variation, the densities of several native species were more reduced by either jewelfish or swamp eels than by native fish predators, while effects of Mayan Cichlids were similar to those of native fish predators. Impacts of the jewelfish boom in Shark River Slough were smaller (density reductions ≤ 50%) and more temporally limited than those of swamp eels, which produced near-complete loss of four species in Taylor Slough. Following the jewelfish bust, the density of affected species approximated pre-invasion predictions based on hydrology, but their recovery is now threatened by the subsequent invasion of swamp eels in Shark River Slough. Long-term monitoring data provide opportunities to probe for population-level effects at field scales, and indicate that impacts of non-native species can be context-dependent and vary across ecosystems and temporal scales. 

The predator-permanence hypothesis predicts that as hydroperiod increases in lentic ecosystems, biotic interactions—mainly predation—replace physical factors like drying as the main determinant of community structure and population dynamics. We propose that the same transition occurs over time in seasonally flooded ecosystems that are connected to permanent water bodies. To test for evidence of successional changes that are similar to spatial changes in the relative importance of drying and predation, we used a 12-y time series of snail density, predator density, and water depth at 4 sites arranged along a nutrient gradient in a subtropical, seasonally flooded wetland, the Florida Everglades, USA. The rate of change in snail population size was negatively correlated with their density at all 4 sites, suggesting that density-dependent factors such as resource limitation regulate snail dynamics. The strength of the relationship varied among sites such that when water depth changes were less important, snail population size was more important in predicting changes in snail population size. At the site that consistently had the greatest snail density, crayfish density negatively affected the rate of snail population change, suggesting that crayfish predation may limit snail population growth in areas with more or higher-quality resources that support larger snail populations. Tethering studies were also conducted, which revealed higher snail mortality in the wet season, primarily because crushing predators (e.g., molluscivorous fishes) were more common at that time and added to the chronic mortality by entry-based predators (e.g., crayfish, which access snails through their aperture). In summary, 3 of the sites resembled temporary or permanent fishless ponds where snail populations were primarily structured by abiotic factors, intraspecific competition, and invertebrate predators (e.g., crayfish) during the wet season, whereas 1 site showed evidence that snail populations were also influenced by molluscivorous fish. This temporal change in importance of water permanence factors to fish that affected population dynamics supports the spatial pattern proposed by the predator-permanence hypothesis.