Fish assemblage distribution along free-flowing rivers entering a reservoir cascade

Silva-Sene, Andressa M.; Loures, Raquel Coelho; Neto, Francisco Ricardo de Andrade

doi:10.1007/s10641-022-01345-2

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Reservoirs often serve as stepping stones for non-native generalists, which facilitates generalists dispersal across the landscape (Havel et al, 2005;Johnson et al, 2008;Liew et al, 2016;Silva-Sene et al, 2022) and thus reservoir communities have usually high similarity with each other, despite their presence in relatively distant watersheds with distinct riverine fish communities. Therefore, reservoirs are one of the sources of biotic homogenization in river ecosystems, which is characterized by a loss of biological uniqueness (Olden and Rooney, 2006;Poff et al, 2007;Clavero and Hermoso, 2010).…”

Section: Proliferation Of Generalists In Reservoirsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living on the edge: Reservoirs facilitate enhanced interactions among generalist and rheophilic fish species in tributaries

Šmejkal

Bartoň

Duras

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Most lotic ecosystems have been heavily modified in recent centuries to serve human needs, for example, by building dams to form reservoirs. However, reservoirs have major impacts on freshwater ecosystem functions and severely affect rheophilic fishes. The aim of this review is to gather evidence that aside from direct habitat size reductions due to reservoir construction, competition for food and space and predation from generalist fishes affect rheophilic community compositions in tributaries (river/stream not directly affected by water retention). River fragmentation by reservoirs enables the establishment of generalist species in altered river sections. The settlement of generalist species, which proliferate in reservoirs and replace most of the native fish species formerly present in pristine river, may cause further diversity loss in tributaries. Generalist migrations in tributaries, spanning from tens of metres to kilometres, affect fish communities that have not been directly impacted by reservoir construction. This causes “edge effects” where two distinct fish communities meet. Such interactions temporarily or permanently reduce the effective sizes of available habitats for many native specialized rheophilic fish species. We identified gaps that need to be considered to understand the mechanistic functioning of distinct fauna at habitat edges. We call for detailed temporal telemetry and trophic interaction studies to clarify the mechanisms that drive community changes upstream of reservoirs. Finally, we demonstrate how such knowledge may be used in conservation to protect the remnants of rheophilic fish populations.

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Section: Proliferation Of Generalists In Reservoirsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living on the edge: Reservoirs facilitate enhanced interactions among generalist and rheophilic fish species in tributaries

Šmejkal

Bartoň

Duras

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Reservoir operation changes the physical aquatic habitat (water level, transparency, and temperature etc. ), which affects fish's natural breeding activities, especially in their early stages, was the main driver of the variation in fish assemblages' structure, influencing fish resources and population structures to a certain extent, and will ultimately affect the reservoir and the whole river basin aquatic ecosystem structure and functional integrity (Silva-Sene et al, 2022). We hypothesized that: the Three Gorges Reservoir habitat rapidly formed the habitat differentiation after impoundment, and revealed 1) if the biological integrity has formed differentiation among different habitats; 2) if there was significant difference in the biological integrity in different sections of the same type habitat.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seven sensitive metrics were selected to describe the canyon reservoir's biological integrity, and the two core metrics are endemic species and exotic species. Species and distribution will decline with the development of cascades , and the effect increased non-native species from the upmost stream to the down most stream (Silva-sene et al, 2022). The risk of the exotic species on occupying the ecological niche of native fish species was reported a lot (Diamond and Serveiss, 2001;Park et al, 2003;Winters and Budy, 2015;Xiong et al, 2018;Liao et al, 2020), it also has been becoming a main ecological risk in TGR, so exotic species was chosen as one of two core metrics.…”

Section: Ecological Significance Of Metrics and Reference Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a biotic integrity index based on long-term fish assemblage changes after dam construction in China

Zhu

Yang²,

Chen³

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Multi-metric indicators based on fish assemblages have been widely applied to assess aquatic ecosystem biotic integrity. However, many of these were not detailed or standardized in metrics selection and reference status for a reservoir ecosystem under the long-term effects of hydro-electrical dam development. This makes it very difficult to determine the reference status and metrics because fish assemblages have been affected by human activities such as large reservoir operations. Based on long-term fish assemblage data, there were significant differences in fish composition between backwater and reservoir areas 10 years after the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) formation in China. We conducted this study to develop a new fish index of biotic integrity (IBI) to evaluate a large river reservoir ecosystem based on long-term monitoring data by establishing subregional habitat reference and selecting sensitive and concise metrics. In the Three Gorges Reservoir, we found that: 1) dynamic change is an important feature of fish assemblages in a relatively dynamic state after a decade of intensive disturbance caused by reservoir operations; 2) reference conditions for the reservoir evaluation should be selected in different stages for two different ecological habitats (lotic backwater and lentic reservoir reaches); 3) two core metrics and five sensitive metrics were selected to reflect fish assemblage degradation based on long term observations; and 4) overall fish biological integrity is generally “fair-poor,” in the reservoir area it is “fair” and “poor,” and in the reservoir lotic backwater it is “fair.” The long-term effects of large canyon reservoirs on biological integrity require long-term observation, and reasonable recovery targets should be set at different stages in reservoir management. In this study, a new biological integrity index was developed to screen and evaluate the ecological status of a semi-artificial reservoir ecosystem. Our results support reservoir biologically integrated management and green sustainable development goals.

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Fish assemblage distribution along free-flowing rivers entering a reservoir cascade

Cited by 2 publications

References 41 publications

Living on the edge: Reservoirs facilitate enhanced interactions among generalist and rheophilic fish species in tributaries

Living on the edge: Reservoirs facilitate enhanced interactions among generalist and rheophilic fish species in tributaries

Development of a biotic integrity index based on long-term fish assemblage changes after dam construction in China

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