Effects of the non-native amphibian species Discoglossus pictus on the recipient amphibian community: niche overlap, competition and community organization
The painted frog, Discoglossus pictus , was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula 100 years ago and its distribution has steadily increased since then. We studied the effects of this non-native amphibian species on the native ones in the northeastern area of the peninsula. We compared amphibian asse...
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Published in | Biological invasions Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 799 - 815 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Dordrecht
Springer Netherlands
01.04.2013
Springer Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The painted frog,
Discoglossus pictus
, was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula 100 years ago and its distribution has steadily increased since then. We studied the effects of this non-native amphibian species on the native ones in the northeastern area of the peninsula. We compared amphibian assemblages in regions with and without
D. pictus
to estimate niche overlap between species. Additionally, we carried out a laboratory evaluation of the effects of competition between the non-native and the two native species with which it overlaps most commonly:
Bufo calamita
and
Pelodytes punctatus
. The presence of
D. pictus
larvae reduced the survival, body mass and activity of
B. calamita
, and increased time to metamorphosis. Furthermore,
D. pictus
showed the highest consumption rate while
P. punctatus
showed the lowest. One possible consequence of these competitive interactions is an alteration of species co-occurrence patterns in the recipient community on a regional scale. In the non-invaded area, the checkerboard score (C-score) of co-occurrence indicated that the community was structured, whereas the standardized C-score in the invaded area indicated that the community did not differ significantly from having a random structure. These results suggest that competition between native and non-native species can cause recipient communities to become less structured. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1387-3547 1573-1464 1573-1464 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10530-012-0328-4 |