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The Effects of Plant Invasion and Ecosystem Restoration on Energy Flow through Salt Marsh Food Webs

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Abstract

We measured the effects of a plant invasion (Phragmites australis) on resident fish (Fundulus heteroclitus) in New England salt marshes by assessing diet quality at the food web base and by quantifying the importance of primary producers to secondary production using a recently developed Bayesian mixing model (Stable Isotope Analysis in R, “SIAR”). Spartina alterniflora, the dominant native plant, exhibited significantly greater leaf toughness and higher C/N ratios relative to P. australis. Benthic microalgae and phytoplankton (as suspended particulate matter) exhibited the lowest C/N indicating higher diet quality. We conducted a sensitivity analysis in SIAR by modeling F. heteroclitus at three separate trophic levels (1.5, 2.0, and 2.5) using species-specific discrimination factors to determine basal resource contributions. Overall, the best-fitting models include those that assume F. heteroclitus resides approximately 2.0 trophic levels above primary producers. Using discrimination factors from a range of data sources reported in the literature, our analyses revealed that consumers rely less on benthic microalgae and phytoplankton in restricted marshes (7–23 % and 11–44 %, respectively) relative to reference marshes (5–34 % and 23–48 %, respectively), resulting in a shift in diet toward invasive plant consumption (0–27 %). This is likely due to increased P. australis cover and marsh surface shading leading to decreased microalgal biomass, combined with reduced flooding of the marsh surface that favors terrestrial invertebrate assemblages. Restoration decreased the quantity of P. australis in the food web (0–15 %) and increased the importance of microalgae (1–30 %), phytoplankton (19–48 %), and native plants (23–63 %), indicating a shift in ecological recovery toward reference conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Rick McKinney at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Atlantic Ecology Laboratory for use of the isotope ratio mass spectrometer, guidance on preparing samples, and for the interpretation of IRMS output. Many thanks to Jim Cronin and Warwick Allen at Louisiana State University for leaf chemistry analysis. The following agencies and organizations provided support to KLD: EPA STAR Graduate Fellowship (FP-91710001-0), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NERR Graduate Fellowship (NA09NOS4200041), National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT Grant to the Coastal Institute at URI (0504103), Philanthropic Educational Organization (Lellis-Dib3158688), Northeast Aquatic Plant Management Society, Rhode Island Natural History Survey and The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island (Lellis-Dibble 05-30-09), and the URI Coastal Fellows Program. To LAM: US NSF DEB Award (1049914), URI Agricultural Experiment Station (RI00H-332, 311000-6044), and the U.S. and Czech Fulbright Commissions.

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  1. Department of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode Island, 1 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI, 02881, USA

    Kimberly L. Dibble & Laura A. Meyerson

  2. Department of Invasion Ecology, Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Průhonice, 252 43, Czech Republic

    Laura A. Meyerson

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  1. Kimberly L. Dibble
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Dibble, K.L., Meyerson, L.A. The Effects of Plant Invasion and Ecosystem Restoration on Energy Flow through Salt Marsh Food Webs. Estuaries and Coasts 37, 339–353 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-013-9673-5

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