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Effects of increasing temperatures on population dynamics of the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha: implications from an individual-based model

  • Global Change and Conservation Ecology
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Abstract

Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha, Pallas, 1771) have had unprecedented success in colonizing European and North American waters under strongly differing temperature regimes. Thus, the mussel is an excellent model of a species which is able to cope with increasing water temperatures expected under global change. We study three principle scenarios for successful survival of the mussel under rising temperatures: (1) no adaptation to future thermal conditions is needed, existing performance is great enough; (2) a shift (adaptation) towards higher temperatures is required; or (3) a broadening of the range of tolerated temperatures (adaptation) is needed. We developed a stochastic individual-based model which describes the demographic growth of D. polymorpha to determine which of the alternative scenarios might enable future survival. It is a day-degree model which is determined by ambient water temperature. Daily temperatures are generated based on long-term data of the River Rhine. Predictions under temperature conditions as recently observed for this river that are made for the phenology of reproduction, the age distribution and the shell length distribution conform with field observations. Our simulations show that temporal patterns in the life cycle of the mussel will be altered under rising temperatures. In all scenarios spawning started earlier in the year and the total reproductive output of a population was dominated by the events later in the spawning period. For maximum temperatures between 20 and 26°C no thermal adaptation of the mussel is required. No extinctions and stable age distributions over generations were observed in scenario 2 for all maximum temperatures studied. In contrast, no population with a fixed range of tolerated temperatures survived in scenario 3 with high maximum temperatures (28, 30, 32°C). Age distributions showed an excess of 0+ individuals which resulted in an extinction of the population for several thermal ranges investigated.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde for granting access to water temperature data of the River Rhine. We are grateful to Otto Richter, Dagmar Söndgerath and Claudia Bruhn (Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany) for supporting the analysis of long-term water temperatures as well as to Jes Johannesen, Nina Farwig and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this manuscript. This research was granted by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Se 506/13-1).

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  1. Department of Ecology, Zoological Institute, University of Mainz, 55099, Mainz, Germany

    Eva Maria Griebeler & Alfred Seitz

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  1. Eva Maria Griebeler
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Correspondence to Eva Maria Griebeler.

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Communicated by Ulrich Sommer.

Priority programme of the German Research Foundation—contribution 14.

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Griebeler, E.M., Seitz, A. Effects of increasing temperatures on population dynamics of the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha: implications from an individual-based model. Oecologia 151, 530–543 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-006-0591-0

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