Time scales of ecosystem impacts and recovery under individual and serial invasions

Introductions of keystone or engineering species have complex and long-term impacts on multiple ecosystem features. Anticipating these consequences requires knowledge of the magnitude and pace of a species’ impacts and whether they subside as resident species and communities adapt. Managing for the effects of invasive species is particularly complicated by a paucity of long-term ecosystem studies, the fact that invaders can represent novel ecological types, and as serial invasions by new species mediate the impacts of an original invader. We resolve the impacts of quagga (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) and zebra mussels (D. polymorpha), two of the most widespread species that increasingly co-invade and re-engineer energy flows in freshwater ecosystems. Following many-decade time series and seven ecosystem features, we find remarkably similar ecosystem responses to mussel invasion across seven lakes in Europe and North America. Lakes invaded by zebra mussels only experienced the most s..., Study area and history of invasion
Studied lakes differed in the duration of Dreissena spp. invasion and the amount of information available. Lake Lukomskoe has the longest dataset of zebra mussel invasion (1972-2008) but has the least amount of available data, especially for the pre-invasion period. Due to the lack of primary data for Lake Lukomskoe we used published data, mostly summer or growing season averages (see below). Much more information (including primary data) is available for Narochanskie lakes and Oneida Lake for both the pre- and post-invasion periods. All information on lakes Eem and Veluwe was retrieved from Noordhuis et al. (2016).
Lake Lukomskoe is the 5th largest lake in Belarus with a wide littoral zone covered predominantly with sandy or silty sand sediments and occasionally with silt, and a profundal zone (> 6 m) with silt (Karatayev 1983). In 1969, Lake Lukomskoe became a cooling reservoir of the Lukoml Thermal Power Station. Zebra mussels were first found in..., Please see details in the ReadMe file.