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Earthworm invasion : consequences and conservation implications for the endangered Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) and maritime meadow ecosystems

University of British Columbia

Biological invasions by non-native ‘ecosystem engineers’ can radically alter the ecological and socio-economic values of ecosystems in ways that may require decades to detect. The invasion of North American glacial refuges by non-native earthworms is a prominent but understudied example of a cryptic invasion by an ecosystem engineer. Non-native earthworms are known to reduce soil carbon, disrupt mycorrhizal networks, and homogenize plant communities in their role as seed predators, root foragers, and in nutrient cycling and redistribution. However, natural resource managers have struggled to discern the scale at which non-native earthworms influence plant species diversity across invaded biomes. With no effective methods to eradicate or control established earthworm populations, there is great need for preemptive strategies to identify high-value conservation areas at risk of invasion. Herein, I address two main questions with implications for forest management: 1) Can the influence of non-native earthworms on plant community assembly be reliably predicted using plant traits? 2) Can abiotic factors be used to identify and predict natural refuges from earthworms in heterogenous habitats? I found that the presence of earthworms contributed to the simplification of plant communities in experimental mesocosms and observational surveys of in-situ forest and meadow habitat. In general, earthworms were associated with plant communities dominated by species with large seeds and fibrous roots, whereas species with small seeds and taproots only persisted in multi-species mesocosms without earthworms. These findings suggest that earthworms shape community composition in the early stages of invasion by acting as ecological filters on morphological plant traits. Last, I constructed an ensemble species distribution model for non-native earthworms using data from 300 survey plots to identify the suite of environmental conditions needed to limit the dispersal and persistence of invading earthworms. This model showed that shallow and dry soils on steep terrain strongly limit the occurrence and abundance of non-native earthworms. My results show that earthworms reduce plant species richness in coastal forest and meadow habitats of southwest British Columbia and highlight the conservation value of shallow-soil habitats that limit earthworm distribution and persistence.

Text

2020-07-02

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/74832

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/