Abstract
Biological invasions are important drivers of biodiversity loss. Hence, predicting invasion risks considering the invasion history of a species might help drive meaningful conservation strategies. We investigated the niche dynamics occurring during the invasion of Hydrilla verticillata in North and South America. Because of founder effects, we hypothesised that occupied invaded area niches across North and South American are a subset of the occupied niche in the native range. Moreover, according to the invasion history, we expected that the South American niche is more similar to the North American one than the native niche. We built ecological niche models to predict the potential distribution of hydrilla from native and invaded occurrence records, as well as analysing niche overlap, equivalency, and similarity between the native and two invaded areas. Although the models predicted spatially congruent suitable sites, the ones based on native occurrence records predicted larger geographical ranges for hydrilla across South America than those based on the records of its North American invasions. The environmental conditions the species occupied in both invaded areas are modestly overlapped with the native area (Schoener’s D < 0.6), with native and South American niches showing the highest overlap and significant equivalency. Contrary to our prediction, the invaded North and South American niches presented the smallest niche overlap. Our findings suggest that founder effects triggered deep shifts in hydrilla’s occupation abilities across invaded areas, but do not support successive invasion events. Hydrilla’s Grinnellian niche was maintained throughout the invaded areas, and its potential invasion across South America is massive, regardless of its origin.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES/MEC) for granting LGR, CCS, and DKP scholarships. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and the associate editor for useful comments.
Data accessibility
All datasets are derived from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility online database (http://www.gbif.org accessed in August 2016). Other records of Hydrilla verticillata in South America were obtained from specialists in macrophytes in Brazil. We are willing to share all data with any interested researcher who contacts the corresponding author.
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Ribas, L.G.S., de Cássia-Silva, C., Petsch, D.K. et al. The potential invasiveness of an aquatic macrophyte reflects founder effects from native niche. Biol Invasions 20, 3347–3355 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-018-1780-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-018-1780-6