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Introduction
Ecology and conservation of diadromous fish. Presently mainly shads and sturgeons. Experiments and exposition of embryos in contrasted environment
Publications
Publications (195)
Species Distribution Models (SDM) are useful tools providing results that can be extrapolated to anticipate species range shifts, under climate change scenarios. SDM studies integrating spatial constraints are significantly lacking in the marine environment, leading to optimistic predictions. This is particularly true for anadromous species in whic...
The European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) is a critically endangered anadromous fish species with the last
remaining population living in the Gironde estuary, thanks to restocking programs. Between 2010 and 2018,
trawling surveys (1022 trawl tows) in the estuary caught 452 sturgeons (fork length (FL) from 25.5 cm to 154
cm). Based on previous knowle...
From experimentations in optimal conditions, we identified the main features of embryogenesis of allis shad Alosa alosa. We propose to use this outcome as endpoints to evaluate the impact of stressors on A. alosa embryogenesis in future studies. Eggs are spherical in shape, transparent and non‐adhesive. Mass hatching occurs between 120 and 144 hpf...
The last remaining population of European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) lives in the Gironde-Garonne-Dordogne (France) catchment (GGD). Captive young individuals are released into the GGD hydrosystem each year, as part of a restocking programme. This study aims to assess the health status of juveniles A. sturio to current conditions in the GGD hydros...
European sturgeon Acipenser sturio is an anadromous fish species being classified “critically endangered” with only one remaining population in the Gironde-Garonne-Dordogne basin (France). In the global warming context, this paper aims to determine the sensitivity of A. sturio early life phases to temperature and oxygen saturation. Embryos were exp...
The European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio, is a highly endangered species that almost disappeared in the last decades. Thanks to yearly restocking of the population, this species is still found in the Gironde estuary (France), where juveniles grow during several years before leaving to the ocean. The aims of this study were to evaluate the pressure e...
Alosa alosa
Allis shad (Alosa alosa) mature at 3–6 years of age and migrate many hundreds of kilometres upstream into their natal river to spawn. Spawning occurs during spring in the
main river and major tributaries, in shallow waters, and over gravel substrate (Baglinière
et al., 2003). The adults usually die after spawning. Allis shad larvae hatc...
Perfluorinated and polyfluorinated substances (PFASs) are widely found in freshwater ecosystems because of their resistance to degradation and their ability to accumulate in aquatic organisms. While water temperature controls many physiological processes in fish, knowledge of the effects of this factor on PFAS toxicokinetic is still limited. This s...
Temperate eels Anguilla anguilla (European eel), A. rostrata (American eel) and A. japonica
(Japanese eel) are three catadromous species which have been declining since
the 1970s/1980s despite their remarkable adaptive capacity. Because of their specific
life cycles, which share distant oceanic spawning grounds and continental
growth stage, eels ar...
Climate, by altering the spatio-temporal distributions of suitable habitats, leads to modifications in a multitude of species ranges. In recent years, the ability of species to adjust to changing climatic conditions is of growing concern. In the present study, a generic trait-based method to assess species exploratory potential under climate change...
To assess the escapement of A. baerii in the French catchments, we propose in this chapter to gather different sources of data related to (1) the escapes related in the French national press between 1990 and 2015, (2) the gray literature and scientific articles that were produced following the largely mediatized escape of thousands of A. baerii in...
To assess the escapement of A. baerii in the French catchments, we propose in this chapter to gather different sources of data related to (1) the escapes related in the French national press between 1990 and 2015, (2) the gray literature and scientific articles that were produced following the largely mediatized escape of thousands of A. baerii in...
Stocking is becoming an increasingly important conservation tool as biodiversity trends continue to decline. The European sturgeon Acipenser sturio is a Critically Endangered species subject to a stocking program in which a better understanding of its life history and stocking achievement is crucial for its conservation. In this study, acoustic tel...
Until recently, the advancement of the conservation plan of the critically endangered European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) was limited since the attempts to reproduce fish of the ex situ stock were not very successful. From 2007 to 2010, 32 females reached maturity but reproduction trials provided limited numbers of individuals. From 2011, the situ...
Acoustic telemetry and GIS-based spatial analysis were used to investigate the summer habitat use and movement patterns of three fish species in the tidal freshwaters of the Seine estuary (France). Experimental displacement of tagged individuals of thin-lipped grey mullet (Liza ramada), European eel (Anguilla anguilla), and common bream (Abramis br...
Post release habitat selection was studied on forty eight 10-month-old hatchery reared European sturgeon (mean fork length 31.0 cm ± 3.0) in the tidal part of their native catchment using acoustic telemetry. Most of the fish reached the oligohaline estuary within 2–4 days (70 km downstream the release site). Seventy four percent of the fish migrate...
The European sturgeon is critically endangered and the French ex-situ conservation approach involves developing a captive stock to produce offspring for release to boost natural populations. The purpose of our study was to assess the effects of rearing environment before stocking on the survival, growth, and behavior of three-month-old sturgeons fr...
The only remaining population of the critically endangered European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio, is located in the Gironde basin (France). A restoration program initiated 20 years ago has allowed more than one and a half million individuals to be stocked. Effective monitoring of this population is a key prerequisite in ensuring the sustainability of...
Status of the Diadromous Fish of the Iberian Peninsula: Past, Present and Trends We examined the past, present and predictable status of diadromous fishes on the Iberian Peninsula, with a focus on the species inhabiting the Minho River. Data on six diadromous species (five anadromous, one catadromous) were collected. Due to population extinction an...
Biotelemetry has many advantages for monitoring fish behaviour. However, the accuracy of results can be impacted by changes in fish behaviour following tagging and other forms of human intervention. Different fish take different amounts of time to return to normal behaviour patterns. This recovery period is often difficult to assess. In many studie...
Species can respond to climate change by tracking appropriate environmental conditions in space, resulting in a range shift. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) can help forecast such range shift responses. For few species, both correlative and mechanistic SDMs were built, but allis shad (Alosa alosa), an endangered anadromous fish species, is one o...
In spite of shrinking populations, the Allis shad (Alosa alosa Linnaeus, 1758) is a species of commercial importance in Europe. On the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the international Minho River, it also represents an important cultural heritage. From the mid-twentieth century on, a marked decrease in the number of spawners occurred in that rive...
La physiologie, les rythmes biologiques et la répartition des poissons dépendent de facteurs environnementaux incluant la température, les conditions hydro-morphologiques, ainsi que la qualité de l’eau. Le dérèglement climatique impactant ces variables est donc un facteur fort de changement pour ces espèces, tant au plan de la physiologie que des f...
Abstract European flounder (Platichthys flesus) is generally considered to be a marine euryhaline species. Most existing studies have focused on the brackish part of its life cycle. This is the first time that acoustic telemetry has been used to study the movements, home range, and habitat use of late-stage juvenile flounders (2 +, 3 +) in a freshw...
European sturgeon sensitivity to oxygen depletion at two different temperatures was evaluated with embryos from fertilization to hatching time that were exposed to 90% O2 saturation (% O2 sat), 50% O2 sat and 30% O2 sat at 20 and 26°C; and three-month-old juveniles (12 cm length, 7.3 g width) exposed to oxygen challenge from 70% O2 sat to 10% O2 sa...
The objective of this paper was to understand trends in modelling over time within sturgeon research and the effects of modelling applications on the scientific community using a bibliometric approach on articles from the ISI Web of Knowledge online database between 1996 and 2012. The results indicate an increasing contribution of modelling within...
Recovery programs for endangered species are long term challenges. Decision support and recovery facilitation generally require scientific and technical expertise to be implemented. These programs ideally reflect a system with interactions among various stakeholders (resource users, agencies, management bodies, conservationists, scientists) involve...
Around 2000, the anadromous allis shad population in the Garonne basin (southwest France) was the largest in Europe. During the first decade of the 21st century, catches dramatically declined and led to a fishery moratorium in 2008. In a first modelling study, the high estuarine mortalities combined with a demographic Allee effect in the reproducti...
European species of sturgeon are threatened and conservation plans have been established for most of them listing actions to improve their status. However our present knowledge about these species limits the range of the actions. We did a work dedicated to A. sturio identifying key researches to conduct (whatever the discipline) to help the conserv...
Within the context of ongoing environmental changes, the life history of diadromous fish represents a real potential for exploring and colonizing new environments due to high potential dispersal abilities. The use of dynamic approaches to assess how these species will respond to climate change is a challenging issue and mechanistic models able to i...
During watershed colonisation by catadromous species, two main phases have been identified: tidal estuary crossing and non-tidal river colonisa-tion. Fishes use selective tidal-stream transport (STST) during the first phase of this colonisation, and counter-current swimming during the sec-ond phase. Therefore, catadromous species have to achieve a...
Sturgeons and paddlefish are among the most commercially valuable groups of fishes and include both low risk and highly endangered species. However, a recent bibliometric study on sturgeon and paddlefish research revealed that disproportionately little attention has been paid to those species that are endangered or face a high probability of extinc...
A l'échelle du Golfe de Gascogne et de ses zones côtières et littorales, les suivis de la biodiversité montrent d'importantes variations annuelles d'abondance et de répartition géographique des espèces en relation avec le climat. Ces évolutions font apparaître des phases brutales d'accélération en relation avec des variations de même forçages clima...
A l'échelle du golfe de Gascogne et de ses zones côtières et littorales, les suivis de la biodiversité montrent d'importantes variations annuelles d'abondance e de répartition géographique des espèces en relation avec le climat. Les tendances actuelles montrent que la biodiversité va évoluer vers une augmentation de représentativité des espèces tem...
Global climate change has been suggested to cause decrease of distribution area of many species. However, this has not been tested for East Asian inland coldwater fish. Chinese minnow (Rhynchocypris oxycephalus) is a small typical coldwater fish, which is endemic to East Asia and generally inhabits stream headwaters. Due to its occurrence in temper...
Rougier, T., Lambert, P., Drouineau, H., Girardin, M., Castelnaud, G., Carry, L., Aprahamian, M., Rivot, E., and Rochard, E. 2012. Collapse of allis shad, Alosa alosa, in the Gironde system (southwest France): environmental change, fishing mortality, or Allee effect? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 1802–1811.
At the end of the 20th century th...
Acoustic telemetry was used to quantify the behaviour of 94 hatchery-reared European sturgeon (27–38 cm in fork length) released in their native watershed. The study took place between July and December 2008 and between April and May 2009 in the tidal part of the Gironde system (south-west France) from freshwater to mesohaline estuary. Survival rat...
Les poissons migrateurs pourraient bénéficier de conditions favorables sur certains affluents de la Seine. Ces affluents sont équipés de nombreux moulins qui souhaitent bénéficier des opportunités offertes par la production d'énergie verte. Par contre les mesures réglementaires recommandés par la police de l'eau ne leur conviennent pas. La situatio...
Almost 3,000 sturgeons have been tagged since 1984, and incidental captures of sturgeons tagged (N = 154) and untagged (N = 86) have been reported by marine fishermen. We suspected that these data did not reflect the total captures at sea. Therefore,
we carried out a large survey which provided information about captures that were not previously de...
This section focuses on future research that should be carried out to contribute to the success of the sturgeon restoration programme. We consider both A. sturio and A. oxyrinchus data to support proposals for future experiments. Three main research topics are proposed: young-of-year behaviour and habitat use in rivers, downstream migration pattern...
Tagging is a widespread method used to acquire data on fish populations. Successive steps to obtain a practical tagging method
for European sturgeon are detailed, and a list of different tags used in Acipenser sturio and Acipenser oxyrinchus in Europe is drawn up. The need to bring together tagging information at the European level is pointed out.
The present legal status of the European sturgeon depends mainly on its conservation status. As a critically endangered species
and an emblematic fish, the European sturgeon is listed in many conventions, and is nowadays strictly protected. Official
recovery plans are now beginning in France and Germany.
Current knowledge of the biological cycle and migration behaviour is detailed in this chapter. Most of the data come from the Gironde population, and a diagram of the biological cycle is proposed. Spawning occurs in freshwater, and juveniles progressively migrate to the estuary and then to the sea to grow. Early life history in rivers, juvenile lif...
Age determination is a key tool in population dynamics for acquiring data on age structure and cohort strength. In the case
of a protected species, the method is required to have no adverse effects on the fish. A method using a thin section of the
first pectoral fin ray has been set up on Acipenser sturio according to these prerequisites, and has b...
This section deals with the monitoring techniques that have been tested and used in the context of the Gironde population
dynamic survey. Very recent methods and results are presented as well as earlier data. Monitoring is currently used mainly
to estimate the efficiency of stocking (survival and growth parameters) and spatial and temporal distribu...
Sturgeon comprise a small family of fish with 4 genera and 27 species. The genus Acipenser accounts for 17 species. In general, they are known for their large size, their unusual appearance, and their famous fish
product, caviar. They are ancient fish ranging only over the northern hemisphere. All Eurasian sturgeon species are currently
under threa...
The present book appears 20 years after the peer-reviewed proceedings of “Acipenser”, the first International Symposium on
sturgeon (ISSI) (Williot 1991) where two preliminary investigations on the European sturgeon were presented (Castelnaud et
al. 1991; Rochard et al. 1991).
In the mid-nineteenth century, the European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio L, 1758) was proved to have been present in a significant proportion of the Western Palearctic region, i.e., Europe and North Africa. Of the 196 basin units investigated, 24 were selected for spawning by sexually mature individuals, and 44 were frequented by occasional vagrants....
Stocking with juvenile sturgeon is a key point of the action plans described below for A. sturio. It is essential to assess the expected effects of these stocking measures in order to improve practises. Using a few parameters of population dynamics assessed from monitoring some cohorts, we simulated the survival of the stocked fish. Simulations are...
The restoration of threatened species is taking place in a changing global environment, creating additional problems for stakeholders and decision-makers to face. Here, the potential influences on the restoration measures developed for the European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio L., 1758) of both climate change and, to a lesser extent, biological intro...
The book aims at synthesizing our current knowledge of Acipenser sturio and its management. This species, one of the most widespread sturgeon species all over Western Europe ranging from the Black Sea to the Baltic, is now on the verge of extinction. Major aspects of its biology and management, including mismanagement, are provided in a historic pe...
What is the future for the European sturgeon?
Brief introduction to sturgeons with a special focus on the European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio L., 1758.
Ces fiches présentent l'ordre des pleuronectiformes, la famille des Pleuronectidae et une description du chabot commun, du chabot du Lez et du flet.
Cryopreservation is a technique of low-temperature conservation of genetic resources for an unlimited period of time The cryopreservation of sturgeon sperm has been problematic for many years, however, during the last decade a reliable methodology has been described that helped to maximize the fertilizing capacity of frozen sturgeon semen. This tec...
This chapter deals with updated larvae management techniques, focusing on feed management. A compound diet was produced, and the reasoning behind this, the choice of ingredients, and manufacturing process are described here. Stocking, feeding sequences and results are also given. Co-feeding was based successively on 1-day-old Artemia salina nauplii...
This work identifies and characterizes the zones of essential habitats for juveniles of Acipenser sturio in the Gironde estuary. It is also attempts to identify the reasons for sturgeons’ preferential habitat utilization. For this purpose, results from monthly surveys in the Gironde estuary carried out between 1995 and 2000, as well as telemetric s...
This section deals with the monitoring techniques that have been tested and used in the context of the Gironde population dynamic survey. Very recent methods and results are presented as well as earlier data. Monitoring is currently used mainly to estimate the efficiency of stocking (survival and growth parameters) and spatial and temporal distribu...
In the mid-nineteenth century, the European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio L, 1758) was proved to have been present in a significant proportion of the Western Palearctic region, i.e., Europe and North Africa. Of the 196 basin units investigated, 24 were selected for spawning by sexually mature individuals, and 44 were frequented by occasional vagrants....
Ces fiches présentent la famille des Acipenseridae, la clé des espèces d'Acipenseridae présentes en France, une description de l'esturgeon européen et des autres esturgeons présents dans les eaux françaises : Acipenser ruthenus et baeri.
This chapter provides data on age at puberty, duration of sexual activity, frequency of spawning, period of spawning, and zones of spawning grounds. Previous data as well as recent information are reported, mainly for the Atlantic population in France. When available, other data have also been mentioned, particularly from the River Guadalquivir (Sp...
This section focuses on future research that should be carried out to contribute to the success of the sturgeon restoration programme. We consider both A. sturio and A. oxyrinchus data to support proposals for future experiments. Three main research topics are proposed: young-of-year behaviour and habitat use in rivers, downstream migration pattern...
Tagging is a widespread method used to acquire data on fish populations. Successive steps to obtain a practical tagging method for European sturgeon are detailed, and a list of different tags used in Acipenser sturio and Acipenser oxyrinchus in Europe is drawn up. The need to bring together tagging information at the European level is pointed out.