Abstract
Florida apple snails, Pomacea paludosa, serve as the nearly exclusive prey for the endangered Florida snail kite, Rostrhamus sociabilis, and many other predators in Florida wetlands. As the Florida Everglades is a hotspot for non-native species, it is prudent to understand the potential impacts non-native predators have on apple snails. In an aquarium setting, we recorded and documented the interactions between the non-native jewelfish, Hemichromis letourneuxi, and native apple snails. We compared these interactions to those recorded between apple snails and redear sunfish, Lepomis microlophus, a native predator. We found that sunfish successfully ate more snails. However, jewelfish attacked apple snails more frequently (n = 314) compared to sunfish (n = 68), resulting in apple snails withdrawing into their shells and displaying longer recovery times from attacks. Apple snails appear to spend more time recovering from attacks or possibly avoiding predation risk, rather than conducting normal movements, in the presence of the jewelfish. This may have impacts on apple snail behavioral ecology, physiology, and demography, potentially reducing prey availability for the endangered snail kite and other predators. Our research provides evidence that jewelfish negatively impact a critically important prey species in Florida wetland food webs.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Pam Schofield and Kristen Weaver from the US Geological Survey (USGS) Gainesville facility for their assistance prior to and during the experiment. This work was funded by USGS (Reston, VA, USA) Grant Agreement G16AC00420 and the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of West Florida (Pensacola, FL, USA). No permits were required for the collection of species used in this experiment since they were from USGS, Gainesville facility, aquaculture (Permit #AQ5111009, Hemichromis and Pomacea snails) or provided directly by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologists (for Lepomis). Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee approval (UWF #2018-002) was obtained prior to the study. This manuscript was improved substantially from revisions suggested by anonymous reviewers.
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Funding was provided by US Geological Survey (Reston, VA, USA) Grant Agreement G16AC00420 and the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of West Florida (Pensacola, FL, USA).
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Siegfried, T.R., Gutierre, S.M.M., Piacenza, S.E. et al. Native and non-native fish predators differ in their consumptive and non-consumptive impacts on a native freshwater snail. Aquat Ecol 56, 865–876 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-022-09944-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-022-09944-y