Invasion dynamics of a fish-free landscape by brown trout (Salmo trutta).

Metapopulation dynamics over the course of an invasion are usually difficult to grasp because they require large and reliable data collection, often unavailable. The invasion of the fish-free freshwater ecosystems of the remote sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands following man-made introductions of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in the 1950's is an exception to this rule. Benefiting from a full long term environmental research monitoring of the invasion, we built a Bayesian dynamic metapopulation model to analyze the invasion dynamics of 85 river systems over 51 years. The model accounted for patch size (river length and connections to lakes), alternative dispersal pathways between rivers, temporal trends in dynamics, and uncertainty in colonization date. The results show that the model correctly represents the observed pattern of invasion, especially if we assume a coastal dispersal pathway between patches. Landscape attributes such as patch size influenced the colonization function, but had no effect on propagule pressure. Independently from patch size and distance between patches, propagule pressure and colonization function were not constant through time. Propagule pressure increased over the course of colonization, whereas the colonization function decreased, conditional on propagule pressure. The resulting pattern of this antagonistic interplay is an initial rapid invasion phase followed by a strong decrease in the invasion rate. These temporal trends may be due to either adaptive processes or environmental gradients encountered along the colonization front. It was not possible to distinguish these two hypotheses. Because invasibility of Kerguelen Is. freshwater ecosystems is very high due to the lack of a pre-existing fish fauna and minimal human interference, our estimates of invasion dynamics represent a blueprint for the potential of brown trout invasiveness in pristine environments. Our conclusions shed light on the future of polar regions where, because of climate change, fish-free ecosystems become increasingly accessible to invasion by fish species.

Role of introduction history and landscape in the range expansion of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) in the Kerguelen Islands.

Human-mediated biological invasions constitute interesting case studies to understand evolutionary processes, including the role of founder effects. Population expansion of newly introduced species can be highly dependant on barriers caused by landscape features, but identifying these barriers and their impact on genetic structure is a relatively recent concern in population genetics and ecology. Salmonid populations of the Kerguelen Islands archipelago are a favorable model system to address these questions as these populations are characterized by a simple history of introduction, little or no anthropogenic influence, and demographic monitoring since the first introductions. We analyzed genetic variation at 10 microsatellite loci in 19 populations of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) in the Courbet Peninsula (Kerguelen Islands), where the species, introduced in 3 rivers only, has colonized the whole water system in 40 years. Despite a limited numbers of introductions, trout populations have maintained a genetic diversity comparable with what is found in hatchery or wild populations in Europe, but they are genetically structured. The main factor explaining the observed patterns of genetic diversity is the history of introductions, with each introduced population acting as a source for colonization of nearby rivers. Correlations between environmental and genetic parameters show that within each "source population" group, landscape characteristics (type of coast, accessibility of river mouth, distances between rivers, river length ...) play a role in shaping directions and rates of migration, and thus the genetic structure of the colonizing populations.