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- Title
Distribution of amphipod communities in the Middle to Upper Rhine and five of its tributaries.
- Authors
Wei Chen; Bierbach, David; Plath, Martin; Streit, Bruno; Klaus, Sebastian
- Abstract
Ponto-Caspian amphipods have continuously been invading the Rhine system at least since the last quarter of the 20th century. This pilot study attempts to identify current regional invasion fronts of invasive amphipods for future continuous monitoring. A standardized kick and sweep sampling technique was used to collect amphipods between July 2011 and May 2012 at five sites in the Northern Upper and Middle Rhine and 35 sampling sites within the following tributaries: Ahr, Lahn, Nahe, Schwarzbach and Weschnitz. Invasive Dikerogammarus villosus dominated sites in the Middle Rhine, and Echinogammarus ischnus in the Upper Rhine. Gammarus roeseli was dominant in the middle and upper reaches of the tributaries, co-occurring with Gammarus pulex in the lower reaches, while G. fossarum was found exclusively in head stream regions. The invasive amphipod species, however, did not invade the majority of the tributaries. D. villosus was only found in the River Lahn, and Chelicorophium robustum, another invasive species, at the confluence of the Nahe and the Rhine. Thus, we identified two kinds of invasion fronts: (1) invasion fronts at the tributaries' river mouths, with a distinct change in faunal compositions over short distances and invasive species occurring only in the most downstream portion of the tributaries. These fronts appear to have been stable over the last decades despite dramatic species turnover within the Rhine itself. (2) A second kind of invasion front was in the middle to upper reaches of River Lahn, where D. villosus co-occurs with native species. The latter river is the only navigable tributary considered in this study, and the fact that invasive D. villosus occur just up to the point where shipping activities stop suggests shipping as an important factor promoting their occurrence.
- Subjects
RHINE River; LAHN River Valley (Germany); RHEINBRUCKE (Neuwied &; Weissenthurm, Germany); GERMANY; AMPHIPODA; GAMMARUS pulex; ANIMAL diversity; WATERSHEDS
- Publication
BioInvasions Record, 2012, Vol 1, Issue 4, p263
- ISSN
2242-1300
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3391/bir.2012.1.4.04