Abstract
The green macroalga Caulerpa filiformis has been spreading on shallow soft sediment habitats along the Peruvian coast, colonizing previously unvegetated sediments to create monospecific meadows. We examined the nature of the impact of C. filiformis meadows on the density, taxonomic richness and assemblage structure of epifaunal and infaunal benthic macroinvertebrates. Specifically, we tested whether the spread of C. filiformis has resulted in different macroinvertebrate assemblages than those formed by the dominant native macroalgae (i.e., Rhodymenia spp.) and unvegetated sediments. Surveys were undertaken in two bays in each of two locations, in central and southern Peru, during winter 2017 and summer 2018. In general, our results show that macroinvertebrate assemblages were similar across all three habitats, although there were some differences, related to location and time, but with no clear patterns observed. Taxonomic richness and density was generally higher in the vegetated habitats than the unvegetated habitat, and where there were differences between the two vegetated habitats there was no consistent pattern of which habitat supported the highest richness or density. Given invading C. filiformis is primarily colonizing unvegetated habitats it would appear that this species is creating a new niche which supports similar assemblages, but higher taxonomic richness and density than unvegetated habitats. While our study suggests that C. filiformis is having a limited ecological impact we recommend that actions be put in place to limit the spread of this invasive species at the same time as increasing monitoring of the ecological impacts of this species as lags in the ecological impacts of invasive species are common.
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Raw data will be made openly available following publication. All data will be made available in Dryad following publication.
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Acknowledgements
This paper is the result of SA Master Thesis. We especially thank to Tim Glasby for his comments during an early version of the manuscript. The authors thank the student members of the ECOMAC research group of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) for assistance in the dive activities, sorting and identification of organisms.
Funding
This project was funded by the Programa de Promoción de Tesis de Postgrado para Docentes de la UNMSM, project code B17100215b. PJM was funded by a NERC-Newton Fund grant NE/S011692/1. RUA was funded by the National Council of Science, Technology and Technological Innovation (FONDECYT) - No E041-2018-01-NERC, Convenio/Contrato N°028-2019-FONDECYT.
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SA contributed to the data collection and samples analysis, PJM contributed to the analysis, wrote the original draft and review the final manuscript, RUA contributed to the study conception, the data collection, analysis, wrote the original draft and review the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
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Aguilar, S., Moore, P.J. & Uribe, R.A. Habitat formed by the invasive macroalga Caulerpa filiformis (Suhr) Hering (Caulerpales, Chlorophyta) alters benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in Peru. Biol Invasions 24, 3305–3319 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02847-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02847-x