Conservadorismo de nicho em cenários de invasões biológicas: décapodes como modelos de estudo

Abstract

Biological invasions are great objects of study to evaluate species ecological niche dynamics. In this sense, decapod crustaceans have several records of becoming invaders in different parts of the globe, proving their high invasive potential according to their generalist biological characteristics. Therefore, in the present study, ecological models were created for the native and invaded areas of nine invasive species of marine decapods, from which the points of greatest environmental suitability in each model were observed. From this, the models were superimposed to evaluate the hypothesis of niche conservatism in the invaded areas, that is, if the niche of the species on an alteration from the colonization of new areas. Only three species maintained their equivalent niche between areas, which differed in the other six species. It was possible to identify patterns related to latitude and temperature variation as influencing factors in the niche expansion of the analyzed species, in which species occurring outside tropical areas and with greater temperature variations in their area of invasion diverged their niches. In addition to answering questions about niche dynamics in biological invasion scenarios, such results are important considering the current global warming outline, indicating that species from temperate areas can better adapt to these conditions and possibly overlap with species from tropical areas, which would be more fragile due to their smaller niche breadth.