Disturbances can facilitate prior invasions more than subsequent
invasions in microbial communities
- Luke Lear,
- Elze Hesse,
- Angus Buckling
Abstract
Invasions are commonly found to benefit from disturbance events.
However, the importance of the relative timing and order of the invasion
and disturbance for invader success remains uncertain. Here, we
experimentally test this by invading a five-species bacterial community
on eight separate occasions -- four before a disturbance and four after.
Invader success and impact on community composition was greatest when
the invasion immediately followed the disturbance. However, the
subsequent invasions had negligible success or impact. Pre-disturbance,
invader success and impact was greatest when the invader was added just
before the disturbance. Importantly however, the first three
pre-disturbance invasion events had significantly greater success than
the last three post-disturbance invasions. Moreover, these findings were
consistent across a range of propagule pressures. Overall, we
demonstrate that timing is highly important for both the success and
impact on community composition of an invader, with both being on
average greater pre-disturbance.