Divergence in the trophic niche of sympatric freshwater invaders

Abstract

When present in sympatry, invasive species have the potential to amplify or mitigate their ecological impacts through their trophic interactions. Their trophic niches may overlap, limiting impacts to specific trophic levels or functional groups; alternatively, they may diverge, with this niche differentiation resulting in contrasting impacts between species on the ecosystem. Here, we tested the trophic consequences for the global freshwater invaders common carp Cyprinus carpio, signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus and topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva when their populations were in sympatry and under varying population biomass across six adjacent and identical ponds. Through using corrected values of δ13C and δ15N, stable isotope niche metrics revealed that when the species were analysed together across all of the ponds, the output indicated their potential to share trophic resources. This was because niche overlap was evident at the species level: P. parva shared 19.6 and 30.4 % of their isotopic niche with C. carpio and P. leniusculus respectively. At the population level, however, the invaders had no niche overlap when present in sympatry and, instead, diverged in their trophic niche space, with C. carpio occupying the highest trophic levels, followed by P. parva and then P. leniusculus. We suggest that at the population level within in each pond, niche differentiation was facilitated by each species being plastic in their resource use, allowing their co-existence in ponds that may otherwise have limited their ability to co-exist through resource limitation.