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. 2016 Apr 12;113(15):4081-5.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1600366113. Epub 2016 Mar 21.

Invasive species triggers a massive loss of ecosystem services through a trophic cascade

Jake R Walsh  1 , Stephen R Carpenter  1 , M Jake Vander Zanden  2
Affiliations

Invasive species triggers a massive loss of ecosystem services through a trophic cascade

Jake R Walsh et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Despite growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services and the economic and ecological harm caused by invasive species, linkages between invasions, changes in ecosystem functioning, and in turn, provisioning of ecosystem services remain poorly documented and poorly understood. We evaluate the economic impacts of an invasion that cascaded through a food web to cause substantial declines in water clarity, a valued ecosystem service. The predatory zooplankton, the spiny water flea (Bythotrephes longimanus), invaded the Laurentian Great Lakes in the 1980s and has subsequently undergone secondary spread to inland lakes, including Lake Mendota (Wisconsin), in 2009. In Lake Mendota, Bythotrephes has reached unparalleled densities compared with in other lakes, decreasing biomass of the grazer Daphnia pulicaria and causing a decline in water clarity of nearly 1 m. Time series modeling revealed that the loss in water clarity, valued at US$140 million (US$640 per household), could be reversed by a 71% reduction in phosphorus loading. A phosphorus reduction of this magnitude is estimated to cost between US$86.5 million and US$163 million (US$430-US$810 per household). Estimates of the economic effects of Great Lakes invasive species may increase considerably if cases of secondary invasions into inland lakes, such as Lake Mendota, are included. Furthermore, such extreme cases of economic damages call for increased investment in the prevention and control of invasive species to better maximize the economic benefits of such programs. Our results highlight the need to more fully incorporate ecosystem services into our analysis of invasive species impacts, management, and public policy.

Keywords: Bythotrephes; Daphnia; ecosystem service; eutrophication; invasive species.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Arrows represent connections among major components of the socioecological system: Lake Mendota. The introduction of Bythotrephes (red arrows) is presented here in the context of existing pathways affecting water clarity (orange arrows), a key ecosystem service in the lake, such as agricultural runoff (yellow arrows), and top-down control of the food web (black arrows). *Increasing phytoplankton biomass resulting from increased nutrient input or decreased grazing decreases water clarity; there are no direct options for the control or eradication of Bythotrephes.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Seasonal dynamics pre-Bythotrephes (blue dashed lines; 1995–2007) and post-Bythotrephes (red line; 2009–2014) of (A) Bythotrephes (micrograms meter−3), (B and C) zooplankton grazers (milligrams meter−3), (D and E) P dynamics (micrograms TP liter−1 and kilograms P day−1, respectively), and (F) water clarity (Secchi depth in meters) are plotted as a smoothed generalized additive model function of day of the year. Shaded areas represent 1 SE. Note that all y axes are log scaled.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
MARSS estimates of ecological interactions are shown with arrows, and the strengths of the interactions are shown as estimates (SEs). Red arrows are significant negative effects, black arrows are significant positive effects, and gray arrows are nonsignificant effects.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
The cost of offsetting Bythotrephes impact through P loading reductions is revealed through predicting water clarity under high (dashed blue line; pre-2009) and low (red line; post-2009) grazing under a range of P loading conditions. This restoration cost is calculated as the cost of the P load reduction necessary to return the lake to pre-2009 clarity (blue circle) under post-2009 grazing (red circle). Here, cost is the estimated total present-day cost over a 20-y project.
Fig. S1.
Fig. S1.
Clarity residuals plotted through time (long-term residuals in Left and seasonal residuals in Right).
Fig. S2.
Fig. S2.
Clarity residuals plotted against z-scored model variates.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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