The effect of light radiation and temperature variability on the invasion of marine fouling species

Climate change can alter the community structure as species which have adapted to the changed climate can compete better with other species. It can also influence the recruitment and invasion success of marine introduced species. Climate change involves not only global warming but also global dimming. However, it was not tested which of warming or dimming factors more significantly influence the invasion of marine species. To test this, we manipulated both temperature variability and light radiation by deploying different shading devices (black, white, transparent, and no treatment) for recruitment tiles in the warmer region where the species invasion rate is high. We compared the species frequency and coverage between shaded and non-shaded treatments. Interestingly, under opaque white plates where light radiation is lower than under transparent plates but the temperature is higher than under black plates, had the highest frequency and coverage of invasive fouling species. The recruitment tiles under black plates got second higher invasion of exotic species. We also deployed recruitment tiles in 14 different sites to determine if temperature influences the success of invasive species. The coverage of invasive species over native species increased significantly with increasing temperature. The results suggest that both low radiation and higher temperature facilitates the success of species invasion in the intertidal region.