Landscape-scale determinants of native and nonnative Great Plains fish distributions

Aim

Landscape-scale factors may have differential effects on the distribution of native and non-native fishes and may help explain invasion success and species declines.

Location

Great Plains, Wyoming, USA

Methods

We used hierarchical Bayesian mixture models and constrained ordination techniques to evaluate associations between landscape-scale factors on native and non-native fish species richness, reproductive guilds and individual species distributions.

Results

Predicted responses between landscape-scale factors and native and non-native fish species richness were similar, except non-native fish species richness that was positively associated with density of oil and gas wells. Non-native fish species richness was also positively associated with native fish species richness. Spawning guild composition differed between native and non-native fishes. Canonical correspondence analysis revealed that the most abundant non-native and only a few native species were positively associated with oil and gas wells.

Main conclusions

The similar relationships between native and non-native fish species richness are likely evidence that they share similar ecological rules, which supports that non-native species become naturalized and they may be affected by the same environmental factors that determine distribution of native species.