Environment and shipping drive environmental DNA beta-diversity among commercial ports

Bibtex

@misc{21ea943f-0b22-4492-80cc-491e46b65e46,
title = "Environment and shipping drive environmental DNA beta-diversity among commercial ports",
abstract = "Abstract The spread of nonindigenous species by shipping is a large and growing global problem that harms coastal ecosystems and economies and may blur coastal biogeographical patterns. This study coupled eukaryotic environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding with dissimilarity regression to test the hypothesis that ship-borne species spread homogenizes port communities. We first collected and metabarcoded water samples from ports in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. We then calculated community dissimilarities between port pairs and tested for effects of environmental dissimilarity, biogeographical region and four alternative measures of ship-borne species transport risk. We predicted that higher shipping between ports would decrease community dissimilarity, that the effect of shipping would be small compared to that of environment dissimilarity and shared biogeography, and that more complex shipping risk metrics (which account for ballast water and stepping-stone spread) would perform better. Consistent with our hypotheses, community dissimilarities increased significantly with environmental dissimilarity and, to a lesser extent, decreased with ship-borne species transport risks, particularly if the ports had similar environments and stepping-stone risks were considered. Unexpectedly, we found no clear effect of shared biogeography, and that risk metrics incorporating estimates of ballast discharge did not offer more explanatory power than simpler traffic-based risks. Overall, we found that shipping homogenizes eukaryotic communities between ports in predictable ways, which could inform improvements in invasive species policy and management. We demonstrated the usefulness of eDNA metabarcoding and dissimilarity regression for disentangling the drivers of large-scale biodiversity patterns. We conclude by outlining logistical considerations and recommendations for future studies using this approach.",
author = "Jose Andrés and Paul Czechowski and Erin Grey and Mandana Saebi and Kara Andres and Christopher Brown and Nitesh Chawla and James J. Corbett and Rein Brys and Phillip Cassey and Nancy Correa and Marty R. Deveney and Scott P. Egan and Joshua P. Fisher and Rian vanden Hooff and Charles R. Knapp and Sandric Chee Yew Leong and Brian J. Neilson and Esteban M. Paolucci and Michael E. Pfrender and Meredith R. Pochardt and Thomas A. A. Prowse and Steven S. Rumrill and Chris Scianni and Francisco Sylvester and Mario N. Tamburri and Thomas W. Therriault and Darren C. J. Yeo and David M. Lodge",
year = "2023",
month = feb,
day = "16",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16888",
language = "English",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
address = "Belgium,
type = "Other"
}

Authors

Jose Andrés
Paul Czechowski
Erin Grey
Mandana Saebi
Kara Andres
Christopher Brown
Nitesh Chawla
James J. Corbett
Rein Brys
Phillip Cassey
Nancy Correa
Marty R. Deveney
Scott P. Egan
Joshua P. Fisher
Rian vanden Hooff
Charles R. Knapp
Sandric Chee Yew Leong
Brian J. Neilson
Esteban M. Paolucci
Michael E. Pfrender
Meredith R. Pochardt
Thomas A. A. Prowse
Steven S. Rumrill
Chris Scianni
Francisco Sylvester
Mario N. Tamburri
Thomas W. Therriault
Darren C. J. Yeo
David M. Lodge