Crossing boundaries: Introduced trout alter the bird community in a naturally fishless headwaters ecosystem

IF 2.9 3区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY
Ecosphere Pub Date : 2025-09-02 DOI:10.1002/ecs2.70389
Mary K. Clapp, Erik W. Meyer, Gail L. Patricelli
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Alpine areas such as the headwaters of California's Sierra Nevada are increasingly imperiled by climate change and other human-induced stressors. For one, the introduction of non-native fishes into over 60% of its historically fishless watersheds has profoundly restructured the aquatic food web, depressed the abundance, biomass, and diversity of native invertebrates, and endangered endemic vertebrate taxa. Lakes and their surrounding land are reciprocally connected through flows of organic matter, such as emerging aquatic insects; however, the extent to which trout introductions disrupt such flows to the terrestrial environment is poorly understood. Emerging aquatic insects are a potentially important prey source for birds; thus, we hypothesized that the community composition, diversity, and abundance of birds differ between fishless lakes and those stocked with trout due to reduced emerging aquatic insect biomass and diversity. We conducted lakeside bird surveys in headwater lake basins in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for three summers (2014–2015, 2020) at a total of 39 lakes and quantified the emergence of mayflies between lake types using sticky traps. In addition to major reductions in mayfly densities, we documented lower overall bird abundance at stocked lakes, as well as turnover in avian community composition between stocked and fishless lakes. A fish eradication project at one lake between 2016 and 2019 allowed us to conduct a multiple-control before-after-control-impact (M-BACI) case study to assess changes in the avian community following fish removal. After fish were removed, bird abundance was two times higher than at the control lake. Given the global decline of insect populations and their importance in bird diets, this study reinforces the importance of studying aquatic and terrestrial habitats as interdependent systems and motivates the restoration of naturally fishless habitats impacted by introduced fishes.

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跨越边界:引进的鳟鱼改变了天然无鱼的上游生态系统中的鸟类群落
像加州内华达山脉的源头这样的高山地区正日益受到气候变化和其他人为压力因素的威胁。首先,将非本地鱼类引入其历史上超过60%的无鱼流域,深刻地重构了水生食物网,降低了本地无脊椎动物和濒危特有脊椎动物分类群的丰度、生物量和多样性。湖泊及其周围的土地通过有机物流动相互连接,如新兴的水生昆虫;然而,鳟鱼的引入在多大程度上破坏了这种流向陆地环境的流动,人们知之甚少。新兴水生昆虫是鸟类潜在的重要猎物来源;因此,我们假设,由于新兴水生昆虫生物量和多样性的减少,在无鱼湖泊和有鳟鱼的湖泊之间,鸟类的群落组成、多样性和丰度存在差异。本研究于2014-2015年、2020年三个夏季在红杉国家公园和国王峡谷国家公园的源湖流域共39个湖泊进行了湖滨鸟类调查,并利用粘捕器量化了不同湖泊类型间蜉蝣的出现情况。除了蜉蝣密度大幅下降外,我们还记录了放养湖泊鸟类总体丰度的下降,以及放养湖泊和无鱼湖泊之间鸟类群落组成的更替。2016年至2019年期间,我们在一个湖泊开展了一个鱼类消灭项目,使我们能够进行一个控制前后影响的多重控制(M-BACI)案例研究,以评估鱼类消灭后鸟类群落的变化。除鱼后,鸟类数量比对照湖高出两倍。鉴于昆虫种群数量的全球下降及其在鸟类饮食中的重要性,本研究强调了研究水生和陆地栖息地作为相互依赖系统的重要性,并激励了受引入鱼类影响的自然无鱼栖息地的恢复。
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来源期刊
Ecosphere
Ecosphere ECOLOGY-
CiteScore
4.70
自引率
3.70%
发文量
378
审稿时长
15 weeks
期刊介绍: The scope of Ecosphere is as broad as the science of ecology itself. The journal welcomes submissions from all sub-disciplines of ecological science, as well as interdisciplinary studies relating to ecology. The journal''s goal is to provide a rapid-publication, online-only, open-access alternative to ESA''s other journals, while maintaining the rigorous standards of peer review for which ESA publications are renowned.
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