Recent invasions of alien macroinvertebrates and loss of native species in the upper Rhine River, Germany.

By D. Bernauer, W. Jansen. 2006

97 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the summers of 2003-2005 we sampled the macroinvertebrate community of the upper Rhine River at 28 locations between kilometer 351.9 and 399.5 with a dredge and a hydraulic grab from a ship, or by hand sampling. Additionally, 16 samples were obtained from the cooling water intake screens of a thermal power plant in 2003. A total of 133 species and higher taxa were identified from approximately 140,000 organisms. A total of 33 neozoa (alien) species were identified, including the first record of Chelicorophium robustum in the Rhine River. Neozoa contributed approximately 74% to the total number of organisms collected from the ship-based samples and 85% to those from the power plant cooling water. Almost 64% of all individuals from the cooling water intake belonged to the Ponto-Caspian amphipod Dikerogammarus villosus. Similarly, only 13 taxa, four native and nine alien species, numerically dominated in the ship-based samples, representing 95% and 98% of all organisms in 2003 and 2004, respectively. The nine alien species contributed 74.7% and 72.1%, respectively, to the number of organisms. Only six species occurred abundantly in the main channel of the Rhine River, five of which were neozoa: Jaera istri, Dikerogammarus villosus, Dreissena polymorpha, Chelicorophium curvispinum, and Hypania invalida. The six abundant species colonized nearshore substrates, whereas only few species were retrieved at low densities from the bottom gravel of the central shipping lane. Species diversity was generally higher and relative abundance of neozoa was lower in backwater areas than in the main river channel. Some pronounced changes in the abundance of three numerically dominant species, including the neozoa D. polymorpha and C. curvispinum, occurred between 2003 and 2004, which likely correlated with differences in water levels and temperatures. Overall, our results demonstrate that the macroinvertebrate community of the upper Rhine River has been severely altered by the invasion of several highly successful alien species and the disappearance or population decline of native species, and that these processes are still ongoing. Changes in species composition and relative numerical abundance indicate both a displacement of native species by invasive species, and a relative rapid succession in the numerical dominance of “old“ neozoa and “new“ neozoa.

Subfields: Ecology, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4b7d1065a445d3d066de39728c0f7c29b6d98449

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. H. MacIsaac
2. A. Konopacka
3. M. Grabowski
4. A. Ricciardi
5. S. Nehring
6. G. Velde
7. Stephan Gollasch
8. V. Panov

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

1. H. MacIsaac
2. M. Grabowski
3. A. Ricciardi
4. J. Weis
5. A. Konopacka
6. J. Ehrenfeld
7. K. Elgersma

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. H. MacIsaac
2. A. Ricciardi
3. A. Konopacka
4. G. Velde
5. Stephan Gollasch
6. V. Panov
7. J. Weis
8. M. Grabowski

Citations in the corpus

• The role of behavior in the success of invasive crustaceans (2010, background): “For example, in the Upper Rhine River, crustaceans made up about 50% of the non-indigenous species (Bernauer and Jansen 2006).”
• Impacts of Biological Invasions on Freshwater Ecosystems (2010, background): “…and rivers have documented invasion histories spanning several decades (see, for example, Mills et al. 1996 ; Hall & Mills 2000 ; Ricciardi 2006 ; Bernauer & Jansen 2006 ), the ecological impacts of freshwater invasions were rarely studied until many years after the publication of Elton ’ s…”
• The river Rhine: a global highway for dispersal of aquatic invasive species (2009, methodology): “SWC, MC (AR?) DW 1870 Gittenberger et al. (1998), Bernauer and Jansen (2006) ”
• Assessment of biocontamination of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in European inland waterways (2008, background): “Within the last decade, at least 5 new AS from the Black Sea basin (including amphipods Chelicorophium robustum and Chaetogammarus trichiatus) have spread via the canal to the Main River, and further on to the Rhine River (Bernauer and Jansen 2006).”
• National checklist for aquatic alien species in Germany (2006, background): “In contrast Bernauer and Jansen (2006) reported that the polychaete Hypania invalida decreased in numbers in the upper Rhine River between 2003 and 2004.”