Eurasian milfoil in Gulf of Mexico estuaries: does invasion of complex submerged vegetation lead to a “trophic dead end” in estuarine food webs?
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Ecosystem Science, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- Vallisneria, eelgrass, habitat, watermilfoil, predator-prey, structural complexity, exotic, anthropogenic, social network modeling, Mobile Bay, Gulf of Mexico
- Copyright
- © 2018 Martin et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Eurasian milfoil in Gulf of Mexico estuaries: does invasion of complex submerged vegetation lead to a “trophic dead end” in estuarine food webs? PeerJ Preprints 6:e27454v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27454v1
Abstract
Estuaries of the northern Gulf of Mexico contain an abundance of habitat-forming submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) that provide refuge and protection for a variety of freshwater, estuarine, and marine organisms. However, many of these estuaries now contain numerous exotic species, the ultimate impacts of which are unclear. In the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, located in the upper portion of Mobile Bay, Alabama (USA), Eurasian milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum, hereafter referred to as Myriophyllum) is now the most dominant submerged macrophyte. Myriophyllum is a structurally-complex macrophyte with the potential to dramatically alter estuarine food webs through reduced encounter rates between predators and their prey and other mechanisms. Previously, we surveyed faunal communities using throw traps, trawls, cores, and suction sampling to compare milfoil assemblages with other native macrophytes to explore the interactive role of hydrology, diel periodicity, and macrophyte presence in influencing community structure. Here, we use this previously collected data to generate a preliminary food web analyses to determine if milfoil, due to its high complexity, creates a "trophic dead end" and limits higher trophic level production. We found the number of nodes, links, linkage density, and connectance to all be greater in milfoil than Vallisneria americana (hereafter referred to as Vallisneria), indicating that a diverse, productive, and highly connected food web exists in this invasive habitat.
Author Comment
This is an original manuscript that we anticipate revising with future input.