Quantifying the Distribution and Diversity of Fish Species Along Elevational Gradients in the Weihe River Basin, Northwest China

Abstract

In this study, species compositions, distributions, and diversity patterns of fish assemblages were investigated at 50 sampling sites in the Weihe River and its two largest tributaries, the Jinghe River and the Beiluo River, under high- and low-flow conditions in 2017. For every condition tested and in the all rivers tested, Cyprinidae was the richest family, containing 17 of the 39 identified fish species. Carassius auratus was the most common species, accounting for 11.3% of the total individuals. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), analysis of similarities (ANOSIM), and similarity percentage analysis (SIMPER) revealed that fish species composition differed significantly among rivers (p < 0.05), with dissimilar species assemblages found in the different rivers. Variation was influenced by a combined effect of habitat conditions, environmental factors, and human impact. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) identified variables explaining the variation in fish species (p < 0.05), and elevation contributed the most under both flow conditions. Alpha diversity decreased with increasing elevation within rivers as a result of changing environmental conditions, especially for wetted width. Alpha and beta diversities of rivers increased with increasing drainage area, which is related to habitat heterogeneity. The decrease in alpha diversity and the increase in beta diversity with increasing elevation can be explained by variations in habitat and geographic features.

Short Communication: Fish diversity and its relationship with environmental variables in Kamala River, Nepal

“…For the midstream section, KA3, cyprinids were dominant, followed by Nemacheilids and Mastacembelids, with Aspidoparia morar and Macrognathus zebrinus being specific to the site. Pebbles, stones, and gravel dominated the riverbed in the site, consisting of leaf substrate and algae, along the banks, which could have been a preferable habitat for these plankton feeding species (Cheng et al 2019). The trend for diversity and evenness indices quite varied for KA2 and KA3 despite their equal number of species richness, which might be due to differences in the stressing factors (Inogwabini and Lingopa 2013).…”

“…Likewise, documenting the aspects of fish functional diversity from different climatic regions showed tropical freshwater fish diversity as the most vulnerable to human impacts that require great conservation focus (Vitule et al 2017). In the Weihe River Basin of Northwest China, the distribution of fish species comprised of pollution tolerant cyprinids (Paramisgurnus dabryanus and Gobio coriparoides) from the catchment that was influenced by heavy sediment load and agricultural runoff (Cheng et al 2019).…”

Ichthyo-diversity assessment of the Old Brahmaputra river, Bangladesh: present stance and way forward

“…Due to climate change and anthropogenic degradation of aquatic ecosystem, aquatic biodiversity, their catches, and their sustainability have undergone an unexpected switching ( Hossain et al., 2012 ; Belton and Thilsted, 2014 ; Hossain, 2014 ; Shamsuzzaman et al., 2017 ; Akhi et al., 2020 ); the Old Brahmaputra is not an exception in this trend. Moreover, various factors including the physicochemical parameters of water (pollution, water depth, temperature, and salinity), meteorological parameters, and food availability affect the distribution and diversity of fish species ( Cheng et al., 2016 ; Cheng et al., 2019 ; Guo et al., 2018 ). Among these, water depth of the habitat is one of the most important factors and so, our present study focused only to evaluate the effect of water depth on species diversity of the Old Brahmaputra river.…”

First insight into freshwater fish assemblages in the western part of the Endau-Rompin landscape, Malaysia

“…Fish species composition is marked by habitat heterogeneity, environmental gradients, and human activity (Sehr and Keckeis 2017;Shukla and Bhat 2017) at local and regional scales (Benke et al 2011;Hasegawa et al 2017;Nicol et al 2017;Cheng et al 2019). Comparably, the fish richness in this study increases across the substations following the river's gradient.…”