Fragment quality and sediment organic loading regulate the survival of an invasive,clonal seaweed |
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Authors: | Fabio Bulleri Laura Tamburello Antonio Pusceddu Lisa Bonechi Alessandro Cau Davide Moccia Paul E. Gribben |
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Affiliation: | 1.Dipartimento di Biologia,Università di Pisa, CoNISMa,Pisa,Italy;2.Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell’Ambiente,Università degli Studi di Cagliari,Cagliari,Italy;3.Dipartimento di Architettura, Design e Urbanistica,Università di Sassari,Sassari,Italy;4.Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences,University of New South Wales,Sydney,Australia;5.Sydney Institute of Marine Science,Mosman,Australia |
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Abstract: | Although propagule pressure is recognized as an important determinant of invasion dynamics, the role of propagule quality (i.e. the physical condition of a propagule) has received little attention. In particular, how the performance of vegetative propagules differing in quality varies across heterogeneous landscapes is yet to be explored. Caulerpa cylindracea is a clonal, invasive seaweed, widely distributed in the Mediterranean. By means of a laboratory experiment, we investigated how variation in the quality of seaweed fragments (intact vs. frond-removal vs. rhizoid-removal) influenced their survival on control versus sediments enriched with detritus from the native seagrass, Posidonia oceanica. The survival of seaweed fragments was low on non-enriched sediments, irrespective of their characteristics. On enriched sediments, survival was high in control and rhizoid-removal fragments, but low in frond-removal fragments. Our study shows that both fragment quality and sediment characteristics influence the survival of C. cylindracea propagules and, hence, long-term spreading dynamics of this seaweed. More generally, it brings novel evidence showing that the effects of propagule quality on invasion success are context-dependent. |
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