Environmental patterns of establishment and early-stage impacts from invasive round gobies in an aquatic biodiversity hotspot
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Kirk, Mark A.
Allegheny College
Bradshaw-Wilson, Casey R.
Allegheny College
Pearce, Kelly J.
Allegheny College
Date Issued
March 26, 2026
Abstract
Quantifying the establishment, spread, and impacts of invasive species requires an accurate understanding of ecosystem structure and function before and after introductions. In 2014, the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) invaded the LeBoeuf Creek subwatershed of French Creek, a tributary to the Allegheny River, PA, USA. We report on a decade of stream monitoring within the immediate invasion front by describing the environmental conditions associated with round goby populations and the potential impacts and resource overlap with native fish communities. First, we found no evidence of a round goby population increase since invasion, and that round goby population densities were higher during early summer and in closer proximity to Lake LeBoeuf. Second, the presence of round gobies overlapped substantially with environments of low-oxygen conditions, low native fish richness, and macroinvertebrate communities dominated by non-insect taxa, all of which are representative of lentic environments. In contrast, greater aquatic insect diversity corresponded to higher native benthic fish diversity of uninvaded reaches. Finally, there was no evidence that round gobies have induced any changes to the native fish communities within the invasion front during the past decade. While our results have indicated a relatively localized invasion from round gobies with minimal impacts to the stream habitats of French Creek, the greatest impacts are likely to be in lentic habitats near Lake LeBoeuf, where round goby populations are most established.
Journal
Journal of Freshwater Ecology
Citation
Kirk, M. A., Bradshaw-Wilson, C. R., & Pearce, K. J. (2026). Environmental patterns of establishment and early-stage impacts from invasive round gobies in an aquatic biodiversity hotspot. Journal of Freshwater Ecology, 41(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/02705060.2026.2648202
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Version of Article
Version of Record
DOI
10.1080/02705060.2026.2648202
ISSN
0270-5060
2156-6941
Rights
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Type of Publication
Journal Article
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