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      Broad and flexible stable isotope niches in invasive non-native Rattus spp. in anthropogenic and natural habitats of central eastern Madagascar

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          Abstract

          Background

          Rodents of the genus Rattus are among the most pervasive and successful invasive species, causing major vicissitudes in native ecological communities. A broad and flexible generalist diet has been suggested as key to the invasion success of Rattus spp. Here, we use an indirect approach to better understand foraging niche width, plasticity, and overlap within and between introduced Rattus spp. in anthropogenic habitats and natural humid forests of Madagascar.

          Results

          Based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values measured in hair samples of 589 individual rodents, we found that Rattus rattus had an extremely wide foraging niche, encompassing the isotopic space covered by a complete endemic forest-dwelling Malagasy small mammal community. Comparisons of Bayesian standard ellipses, as well as (multivariate) mixed-modeling analyses, revealed that the stable isotope niche of R. rattus tended to change seasonally and differed between natural forests and anthropogenic habitats, indicating plasticity in feeding niches. In co-occurrence, R. rattus and Rattus norvegicus partitioned feeding niches. Isotopic mismatch of signatures of individual R. rattus and the habitat in which they were captured, indicate frequent dispersal movements for this species between natural forest and anthropogenic habitats.

          Conclusions

          Since R. rattus are known to transmit a number of zoonoses, potentially affecting communities of endemic small mammals, as well as humans, these movements presumably increase transmission potential. Our results suggest that due to their generalist diet and potential movement between natural forest and anthropogenic habitats, Rattus spp. might affect native forest-dependent Malagasy rodents as competitors, predators, and disease vectors. The combination of these effects helps explain the invasion success of Rattus spp. and the detrimental effects of this genus on the endemic Malagasy rodent fauna.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-017-0125-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references69

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          Predation, apparent competition, and the structure of prey communities

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            The evolutionary impact of invasive species.

            Since the Age of Exploration began, there has been a drastic breaching of biogeographic barriers that previously had isolated the continental biotas for millions of years. We explore the nature of these recent biotic exchanges and their consequences on evolutionary processes. The direct evidence of evolutionary consequences of the biotic rearrangements is of variable quality, but the results of trajectories are becoming clear as the number of studies increases. There are examples of invasive species altering the evolutionary pathway of native species by competitive exclusion, niche displacement, hybridization, introgression, predation, and ultimately extinction. Invaders themselves evolve in response to their interactions with natives, as well as in response to the new abiotic environment. Flexibility in behavior, and mutualistic interactions, can aid in the success of invaders in their new environment.
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              Fractionation and turnover of stable carbon isotopes in animal tissues: Implications for ?13C analysis of diet

              The use of stable carbon isotopes as a means of studying energy flow is increasing in ecology and paleoecology. However, secondary fractionation and turnover of stable isotopes in animals are poorly understood processes. This study shows that tissues of the gerbil (Meriones unguienlatus) have different δ13C values when equilibrated on corn (C4) or wheat (C3) diets with constant 13C/12C contents. Lipids were depleted 3.0‰ and hair was enriched 1.0‰ relative to the C4 diet. Tissue δ13C values were ranked hair>brain>muscle>liver>fat. After changing the gerbils to a wheat (C3) diet, isotope ratios of the tissues shifted in the direction of the δ13C value of the new diet. The rate at which carbon derived from the corn diet was replaced by carbon derived from the wheat diet was adequately described by a negative exponential decay model for all tissues examined. More metabolically active tissues such as liver and fat had more rapid turnover rates than less metabolically active tissues such as hair. The half-life for carbon ranged from 6.4 days in liver to 47.5 days in hair.The results of this study have important implications for the use of δ13C values as indicators of animal diet. Both fractionation and turnover of stable carbon isotopes in animal tissues may obscure the relative contributions of isotopically distinct dietary components (such as C3 vs. C4, or marine vs. terrestrial) if an animal's diet varies through time. These complications deserve attention in any study using stable isotope ratios of animal tissue as dietary indicators and might be minimized by analysis of several tissues or products covering a range of turnover times.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                melanie.dammhahn@uni-potsdam.de
                tokilaci@yahoo.fr
                sgoodman@fieldmuseum.org
                Journal
                BMC Ecol
                BMC Ecol
                BMC Ecology
                BioMed Central (London )
                1472-6785
                17 April 2017
                17 April 2017
                2017
                : 17
                : 16
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0942 1117, GRID grid.11348.3f, Animal Ecology, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, , University of Potsdam, ; Maulbeerallee 1, 14469 Potsdam, Germany
                [2 ]GRID grid.452263.4, , Association Vahatra, ; BP 3972, 101 Antananarivo, Madagascar
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2165 5629, GRID grid.440419.c, Mention Zoologie et Biodiversité Animale, , Université d’Antananarivo, ; BP 906, 101 Antananarivo, Madagascar
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0476 8496, GRID grid.299784.9, , Field Museum of Natural History, ; 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605 USA
                Article
                125
                10.1186/s12898-017-0125-0
                5393019
                28412938
                d4c4af6c-11b1-4f9f-96d4-8feabcb0db53
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 23 November 2016
                : 31 March 2017
                Funding
                Funded by: Welcome Trust
                Award ID: 095171
                Funded by: European Union
                Award ID: European Development Fund FED 2013330-223
                Award Recipient :
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Ecology
                bayesian standard ellipse,coexistence,habitat use,humid forest,invasion ecology,invasive species,rattus rattus,rattus norvegicus,rodents,fur,stable carbon isotope,stable nitrogen isotope

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