Modeling co-occurrence between toxic prey and naïve predators in an incipient invasion

摘要: Biological invasions can represent important threats to endemic species, including those within the invaders’ food webs. The Asian common toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus) was introduced Madagascar in 2011. This introduction presents a potentially dangerous prey item relatively naive, highly diverse carnivore fauna. Using multivariate niche modeling approach (background test), we assessed predicted overlap between D. melanostictus and six carnivores eastern Madagascar. this potential predators on four environmental axes: temperature, precipitation, vegetation cover elevation. Our results showed mixture of divergence for axes tested. There significant with five temperature NDVI axes. On precipitation axis, there two species. suggested that wide-ranging, locally rare may extensively melanostictus. inhabit rainforest will likely share multiple, novel item. Species eat non-native are susceptible its toxins at conservation risk because their populations not be robust enough adapt quickly threat. We advocate closely monitoring these emerging interactions suggest preemptive strategy risk.