Partial decoupling between exotic fish and habitat constraints remains evident in late invasion stages

Abstract

We investigated the relationships between exotic freshwater fish invasions, environmental factors and ecofunctional diversity (i.e. the combination of ecological traits in communities) in streams. We used data from 335 stream sites, belonging to 105 watersheds and 3 basins in Italy, to test whether the exotic species invasion was dominated by species with generalist traits and whether the environment-ecofunctional trait relationships of exotic and native species would differ from each other. We also tested the hypothesis that ecofunctional uniqueness patterns between exotic and native species would be substantially different. We found that generalist traits were widespread in nearly all areas where exotic species occurred, but not all generalist traits were equally abundant in exotic communities. Only temperature tolerant, low oxygen tolerant and eurytopic traits were typically more dominant in exotic communities than native ones, suggesting that not all generalist traits are equally important in the invasion process and that more complex mechanisms of trait selection could take place. Environment-ecofunctional trait relationships of exotic and native species partly differed both in direction and magnitude, suggesting that invasion dynamics could decouple the linkage between environment and biotic communities, but also that this decoupling might decrease at later invasion stages (i.e. > 30 years after major invasions). Finally, site and trait ecofunctional uniqueness differed between exotic and native species. Exotic species ecofunctional diversity hotspots were located in human-disturbed areas, suggesting that human disturbance might play a strong role in invasion patterns. We advocate for a wider use of ecofunctional approaches in conservation studies in the future, as they could be a key to understand complex ecological processes such as exotic invasions.