1. Secondary production and diet of an invasive snail in freshwater wetlands: implications for resource utilization and competition
- Author
-
David Dudgeon, Pak Ki Wong, King Lun Kwong, and Jian-Wen Qiu
- Subjects
geography ,Biomass (ecology) ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,Detritus ,Ecology ,Wetland ,Introduced species ,Biology ,biology.organism_classification ,Macrophyte ,Aquatic plant ,Ecosystem ,Pomacea canaliculata ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics - Abstract
Invasive species can monopolize resources and thus dominate ecosystem production. In this study we estimated secondary production and diet of four populations of Pomacea canaliculata, a freshwater invasive snail, in wetlands (abandoned paddy, oxbow pond, drainage channel, and river meander) in mon- soonal Hong Kong (lat. 22N). Apple snail secondary production (ash-free dry mass (AFDM)) ranged from 165.9 to 233.3 g m -2 year -1 , and varied between seasons. Production was lower during the cool dry northeast monsoon, when water temperatures might have limited growth, but fast growth and recruitment of multiple cohorts were possible throughout much (7-10 months) of the year and especially during the warm, wet southwest monsoon. The diet, as revealed by stomach-content analysis, consisted mainly of detritus and macrophytes, and was broadly consistent among habitats despite considerable variation in the composition and cover of aquatic plants. Apple snail annual production was(10 times greater than produc- tion estimates for other benthic macroinvertebrates in
- Published
- 2009