Stationary substrates facilitate bioinvasion in paranaguá Bay in Southern Brazil

• Artificial substrates in and near ports and marinas commonly have many non-indigenous species andare the first stepping stone for the establishment of bioinvasors. Substrate movement influencesfouling communities and so understanding of how species assemblages are related to specificsubstrate conditions is crucial as a management tool. Here we describe the species assemblage of thecommunity after six months of development on granite plates in Paranaguá Bay. Species richnesswas similar in the two treatments, with 12 species on floating (constant depth) plates and 15 onstationary (variable depth) plates. However, species composition differed, with the community onfloating plates being dominated by the native bivalve Mytella charruana (66.1 + 5.5% cover) andthat on stationary plates dominated by the barnacles Fistulobalanus citerosum (49.8 + 3.5% cover)and the introduced Amphibalanus reticulatus (33.9 + 3.7% cover). Other introduced species wereGarveia franciscana, on one stationary plate, and Megabalanus coccopoma also on one stationaryplate and not very abundant on half of the floating plates (< 2%). Thus, stationary plates were moresusceptible to introduced species that may become very abundant, suggesting that this type ofsubstrate should be a priority in management for bioinvasion control. We also hypothesize that thenative bivalve M. charruana is the dominant competitor for space on floating substrates, therebyreducing the invasiveness of that type of substrate.

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

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