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Introduction (minimum 1 page of text)
? Importance of your project and research question
? Background information on how the anthropause affected other animal populations
? Background info on mosquitofish life history
? Knowledge gap
? State your research question, biological hypotheses, and predictions
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The Impact of Invasive Nature of Mosquitofish on Native Ecosystem
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The Impact of Invasive Nature of Mosquitofish on Native Ecosystem
One of the key challenges the normal functioning of the global ecosystem faces is human
activities, including induced biological invasions. The marine ecosystem is especially vulnerable
to biological invasions where humans introduce aquatic species in non-native ecosystems.
However, some introduced species adapt to the non-native ecosystem and colonize them, thus
significantly affecting the native species. Thus, this study is important as it seeks to answer how
non-native biological invasion of the mosquitofish threatens the aquatic ecosystem.
The term anthropause came into existence during the lockdown instituted by various
governments across the globe to control the spread of Covid 19. Scientists have defined the
terms referring to the unprecedented decline or slowdown in human activity, including traveling,
outdoor activities, and tourism (Samurovic, 2021). According to StokstadAug (2020),
anthropause presented scientists with a golden opportunity for scientists to study how the
slowdown of human activities affected the behavior of animals. According to researchers,
numerous rare species were sighted during the anthropause in different parts of the world,
including a sighting of river otters, pink-plumed flamingos in waterways of Mumbai, and wild
boar strolling the streets of Haifa in Israel (StokstadAug, 2020).
The mosquitofish is one of the most common non-native biological invasive fish species
globally, whose ecological impacts have been heavily documented. Mainly, there are two species
of mosquitofish, namely eastern mosquitofish and western mosquitofish (Langerhans et al.,
2012). Each of these species occupies different climatic conditions, although mosquitofish have
adapted to different non-native climate conditions. As Benejam et al. (2009) notes, latitude has a
huge effect on mosquitofish, where those in the northern latitudes were small in size at maturity
compared to their southern counterparts. Alcaraz and García-Berthou (2007) further note that
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females are the dominant species with a female-to-male of 1.65:1, where fecundity ranges from 4
to 65 eggs. This is also supported by Patimar et al. (2011), who notes that other studies have
concluded that the female-to-male sex ratio among the western mosquitofish is 2:1. In line with
these findings, Gkenas (2012) notes that mosquitofish is thus characterized by a fast growth rate,
low fecundity, and relatively short lifespan, which are key enablers of the invasive nature of
mosquitofish.
Numerous studies have been conducted on population dynamics and reproductive
biology of mosquitofish in different ecosystems. For example, a study conducted by Alcaraz and
Garcia-Berthou(2007) investigated the productivity of mosquitofish in rice irrigation channels,
while another study conducted by Cheng et al. (2018) sort to study the life-history trait of the
mosquitofish population in China. However, there has been no comprehensive study on the
Impact of mosquitofish on the invaded ecosystem. Thus this study will seek to answer how nonnative biological invasion of the mosquitofish threatens the aquatic ecosystem. The biological
hypothesis is that the invasion of ecosystems by mosquitofish significantly damages the normal
functioning of the native ecosystem. It is predicted that the hypothesis will be true.
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References
Alcaraz, C., & García-Berthou, E. (2007). Life history variation of invasive mosquitofish
(Gambusia holbrooki) along a salinity gradient. Biological Conservation, 139(1-2), 8392.
Benejam, L., Alcaraz, C., Sasal, P., Simon-Levert, G., & García-Berthou, E. (2009). Life history
and parasites of the invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) along a latitudinal
gradient. Biological Invasions, 11(10), 2265-2277.
Cheng, Y., Xiong, W., Tao, J., He, D., Chen, K., & Chen, Y. (2018). Life-history traits of the
invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis Baird and Girard, 1853) in the central Yangtze
River, China. BioInvasions Records, 7(3), 309-318.
Erik StokstadAug. 13, 2. (2020, August 18). The pandemic stilled human activity. What did this
'anthropause' mean for wildlife? Retrieved from
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/pandemic-stilled-human-activity-what-didanthropause-mean-wildlife
Gkenas, C., Oik...