Fish fauna from Sapucaí-Mirim River, tributary of Grande River, upper Paraná River basin, Southeastern Brazil

Abstract

The fish species composition of Sapucaí-Mirim River is herein reported and discussed in the faunistic context of Grande and Paranaíba river basins, both formers of the Paraná River. The Sapucaí-Mirim is an important tributary of this hydrographic system, flowing to the left bank of Grande River in a region occupied by the reservoir of the Porto Colombia hydroelectric power plant, at São Paulo state northeastern region, in southeastern Brazil. The poorly known fish diversity of the Sapucaí-Mirim River is presented on basis of sampling efforts conducted in the main river channel and three creeks located at the mid and lower sections of the basin, allowing comparisons of the fish fauna of these two sections in the light of available information of fish inhabiting Grande and Paranaíba river basins. The study of the fish composition resulted in the recognition of 68 species in the Sapucaí-Mirim River, belonging to 23 families distributed in seven orders, all commonly found in upper Paraná River basin: Characiformes (32 spp.), Siluriformes (25 spp.), Labriformes (4 spp.), Gymnotiformes (3 spp.), Cyprinodontiformes (2 spp.), Perciformes (one species) and Synbranchiformes (one species). Most of the species are representative of the native ichthyofauna, but the total diversity also includes allochthonous species, which were chiefly found in the lower stretch studied. Some species found in the Sapucaí-Mirim River require great areas for their maintenance, as do large-sized species, known to have migratory reproductive habits. Also, the diversity of small and medium-sized species found and their distinct morphological and biological attributes, allied to the occurrence of endangered fish species, indicate that the Sapucaí-Mirim River basin is an important place for fish diversity maintenance in the Grande River hydrographic system.

Influence of habitat connectivity and seasonality on the ichthyofauna structure of a riverine knickzone

“…The ichthyofauna structure of the studied knickzone differs from that reported in other stretches of Sapucaí-Mirim River (Castro et al, 2004;Oliveira et al, 2016). In this knickzone, it was sampled 23% of the total fish species richness known for this river and five new species records were reported (Bryconamericus turiuba Langeani, Lucena, Pedrini & Tarelho-Pereira, 2005, Knodus moenkhausii, Planaltina britskii Menezes, Weitzman & Burns, 2003, Hypostomus fluviatilis (Schubart, 1964 and Pseudostegophilus paulensis Miranda Ribeiro, 1918).…”

“…The orders Characiformes and Siluriformes were the most representative in the studied knickzone. This is the common pattern for the Upper Paraná basin (Lowe-McConnell, 1975;Agostinho & Júlio Jr., 1999;Langeani et al, 2007), which is also recurrent in the Sapucai-Grande basin (Castro et al, 2004;Oliveira et al, 2016).…”

Dispersal of fish eggs and larvae in a cascade of small hydropower plants with fish ladders

“…Species presenting such traits have free-flowing eggs and larvae and, therefore, would rely on downstream dispersal to complete their life cycles (Nakatani et al, 2001). A list of species (see Supplementary Material S1 for more details) occurring in the Sapucaí-Mirim River was compiled from previous studies (Freitas-Souza, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2016;Brambilla et al, 2018) to assure that eggs and larvae not identified at the species level still pertained to species with the aforementioned traits, so they could be reliably treated as having free-flowing embryos in the analyses.…”

“…and species from these genera have been identified as migratory in the Upper Paraná Basin (Vono et al, 2002). Previous studies that sampled adult fish in the same area (Freitas-Souza, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2016;Brambilla et al, 2018) have recorded the occurrence of Pimelodus maculatus Lacépède, 1803 (Pimelodidae), Megaleporinus obtusidens (Valenciennes, 1837) and Megaleporinus piavussu (Britski, Birindelli & Garavello, 2012) (Anostomidae) (see Supplementary Material S1 for more details), indicating that the eggs and larvae identified in this study likely belong to these species. The identification of eggs and larvae was performed in this study using only morphologic criteria.…”

Macrophytes banks as potential fish nursery areas in small hydropower reservoirs

“…Two SHP's reservoirs were selected in our study, located in Sapucaí-Mirim River, north of São Paulo State, Brazil. This river basin has a diverse fish fauna, with at least 105 species (Oliveira et al, 2016;Brambilla et al, 2019;Diniz et al, 2019), and it is an important direct tributary of the Grande River, upper Paraná Basin. The fish fauna is mainly represented by small and medium-size species, with only three large-sized migrators (Oliveira et al, 2016).…”