Competitive Interactions between Invasive Nile Tilapia and Native Fish: The Potential for Altered Trophic Exchange and Modification of Food Webs

Recent studies have highlighted both the positive and negative impacts of species invasions. Most of these studies have been conducted on either immobile invasive plants or sessile fauna found at the base of food webs. Fewer studies have examined the impacts of vagile invasive consumers on native competitors. This is an issue of some importance given the controlling influence that consumers have on lower order plants and animals. Here, we present results of laboratory experiments designed to assess the impacts of unintended aquaculture releases of the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), in estuaries of the Gulf of Mexico, on the functionally similar redspotted sunfish (Lepomis miniatus). Laboratory choice tests showed that tilapia prefer the same structured habitat that native sunfish prefer. In subsequent interspecific competition experiments, agonistic tilapia displaced sunfish from their preferred structured habitats. When a piscivore (largemouth bass) was present in the tank with both species, the survival of sunfish decreased. Based on these findings, if left unchecked, we predict that the proliferation of tilapia (and perhaps other aggressive aquaculture fishes) will have important detrimental effects on the structure of native food webs in shallow, structured coastal habitats. While it is likely that the impacts of higher trophic level invasive competitors will vary among species, these results show that consequences of unintended releases of invasive higher order consumers can be important

A successful case of biological invasion: the fish Cichla piquiti, an Amazonian species introduced into the Pantanal, Brazil

The "tucunaré", Cichla piquiti, an exotic Amazonian fish has become established along the left bank of the Paraguay River in the Pantanal. It was introduced by escaping from culture ponds in the Upper Piquiri River and spread downstream, along the lateral flooded areas of that river, continuing through the clear waters of the left bank of the Paraguay River and reaching south as far as the Paraguai Mirim and Negrinho rivers. Adult spawners have been found in the region, meaning that it is a self-sustained population. Reproduction occurs in the period of low waters. They were found feeding on fishes of lentic environments belonging to the families Characidae, Cichlidae and Loricariidae. Until the end of 2004, its distribution was restricted to the left bank of the Paraguay River, but in March 2005, some specimens were found on the right bank, raising a question for the future: what will be the distribution area of the tucunaré in the Pantanal? Information about its dispersion is increasing: it is known to be in the Tuiuiú Lake, Pantanal National Park and in the Bolivian Pantanal, all of them on the right bank of the Paraguay River. The hypothesis that the "tucunaré" could not cross turbid waters, such as in the Paraguay River, was refuted by these recent findings. Possibly, the tucunaré's capacity to lay more than one batch of eggs in a reproductive period, as well as its care of eggs and young, lead them to establish themselves successfully in new environments, as has been observed in the Pantanal and other localities