Invasive grass causes biotic homogenization in wetland birds

Abstract

Plant invasions often lead to homogenization of the plant community, but the potential for plant invasions to cause homogenization of other trophic levels is under-studied in many systems. We tested whether the bird community in Phragmites australis-invaded marsh would exhibit spatial and temporal taxonomic homogenization compared to remnant cattail and meadow marsh. We compared the bird community using marsh invaded by P. australis and remnant, uninvaded marsh vegetation in a year with average water depths and a year with above-average water depths in the coastal marshes of a World Biosphere Reserve. Our results demonstrate strong evidence for spatial and temporal homogenization of the wetland bird community following P. australis invasion. The birds present in P. australis-invaded marsh were a nested subset of those present in remnant marsh, and total beta diversity decreased when water depths were above average. In contrast, total beta diversity was high in remnant marsh vegetation and stable between the two years. The distinctively structured vegetation zones in remnant (uninvaded) marsh yields structural complexity and habitat heterogeneity that supports greater taxonomic turnover in the bird community. Our study provides evidence that invasion by a plant has resulted in biological homogenization of the wetland bird community.