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The effects of novel leaf litter deposition on competitive, predator–prey and host–parasite interactions of American toad larvae

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Abstract

Wetland plant communities are changing rapidly due to a wide range of human activities. The deposition of leaf litter from novel plant communities can alter both the chemical and physical habitat of aquatic ecosystems. Lesser understood are the ecological consequences of novel leaf litter inputs in aquatic communities. Toward this goal, we used two plant invasion scenarios (comparing native black huckleberry to exotic autumn olive and native swamp loosestrife to exotic purple loosestrife) to simulate a shift in wetland plant communities. In this study, we investigated the effects of novel leaf litter leachates on three aquatic ecological interactions: intraspecific competition, predation and parasitism. We examined how leaf litter leachates influence the interactions of American toad larvae (Anaxyrus americanus) with their conspecifics, a dragonfly predator (Anax spp.) and a trematode parasite (Echinostomatidae). We found that leaf litter type influenced competitive interactions only for the huckleberry versus autumn olive comparison. We did not detect any effects of leaf litter type on predator–prey interactions. Finally, litter type strongly influenced host–parasite interactions for both leaf litter comparisons, altering host susceptibility, parasite survival and net infection rates. These results highlight the breadth of potential ecological repercussions of shifting wetland plant communities for native ecosystems.

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Data Availability

Data for this study are available at the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.np5hqbztq.

Code Availability

All statistics were conducted using SPSS (Version 24, IBM).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Nicholas Buss, Grascen Shidemantle, Vanessa Wuerthner, Jared Jaeger, Sean Ryan, Dyllan May, Quentin Melnick-Kelley, Matthew Wersebe, Kimoya Roach and Brianna Sander for their help in conducting the study. We would also like to thank John Maerz, Julian Shepherd, James Sobel and Weixing Zhu for their comments and suggestions, which helped shape this manuscript.

Funding

We would like to thank the National Science Foundation for funding provided to JH (NSF DEB 1655190).

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  1. Biological Sciences Department, Binghamton University (SUNY), 4400 Vestal Parkway East, PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY, 13902, USA

    Devin G. DiGiacopo & Jessica Hua

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  1. Devin G. DiGiacopo
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Both DGD and JH made substantial contributions to the design and execution of the study, analysis of the data and the writing and revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Devin G. DiGiacopo.

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Experimental vertebrate care was conducted in accordance with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) guidelines (protocol #: 809-18).

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DiGiacopo, D.G., Hua, J. The effects of novel leaf litter deposition on competitive, predator–prey and host–parasite interactions of American toad larvae. Aquat Ecol 56, 59–73 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-021-09893-y

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