The role of species thermal plasticity for alien species invasibility in a changing climate: A case study of Lophocladia trichoclados

Abstract

The Mediterranean Sea provides fertile ground for understanding the complex interplay between invasive species and native habitats, particularly within the context of climate change. This thermal tolerance study reveals the remarkable ability of Lophocladia trichoclados, a red algae species that has proven highly invasive, to adapt to varying temperatures, particularly thriving in colder Mediterranean waters, where it can withstand temperatures as low as 14 °C, a trait not observed in its native habitat. This rapid acclimation, occurring in less than a century, might entail a trade-off with high temperature resistance. Additionally, all sampled populations in the Mediterranean share the same haplotype, suggesting a common origin and the possibility that we might be facing an exceptionally acclimatable and invasive strain. This high degree of acclimatability could determine the future spread capacity in a changing scenario, highlighting the importance of considering both acclimation and adaptation in understanding the expansion of invasive species' ranges

Financial support has been provided by Spanish Ministry Project ANIMA (No. CGL2016-76341-R, MINECO/FEDER, UE) FoRestA, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grant/Award No. PID2020-112985 GB-I00) and FoRescue, European Biodiversity Partnership (PSI2022-135070-2) and the European Union – NextGenerationEU – as part of the MITECO program for the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (Recovery and Resilience Facility of the European Union established by the Regulation (EU) 2020/2094), and was entrusted to CSIC, AZTI, SOCIB, and the universities of Vigo and Cadiz. This work was also supported by a FPI grant (project ANIMA, BES-2017-079907) to RG. AV, RG and EC are members of the MedRecover Research Group (www.medrecover.org; 2017 SGR 1521)