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The quiet crisis: a preliminary listing of the freshwater fishes of the world that are extinct or "missing in action"
... The introduction of invasive aquatic species has been identified as one of the main environmental risks facing species, aquatic habitats and biodiversity in general (Hopkins, 2001). The growth of aquatic species and among many of them the exotic ones, has been associated with the extinction of 54% of the cases of native aquatic fauna worldwide (Harrison y Stiassny, 1999), of the 70% of fish in Northamerica (Lassuy, 2002) and 60% of Mexican fish (Contreras, 1999). ...
2012 Weeds across borders proceedings
... Fresh water is home to over 10,000 fish species, accounting for roughly 40% of global fish biodiversity and one-quarter of global vertebrate biodiversity [2]. Because estimates of species richness in individual rivers are unreliable, it is almost certain that regional national inventories, museum collections, and taxonomic knowledge in many tropics are insufficient to document extinctions, and thus widespread undetected extinctions of inconspicuous species have already occurred [3]. The Meenachil River is located in the district of Kottayam. ...
The present study was conducted to gain a better understanding of the variety of freshwater fishes found in the Meenachil River. The Meenachil river is one of Kerala's major rivers. The Meenachil River has an abundance of indigenous fishery resources as well as a high level of biodiversity. The current study was carried out to identify the fishes of the five Meenachil river stations. Poonjar (station 1), Erattupetta (station 2), Pala (station 3), Ettumanoor (station 4) and Kottayam (station 5) are the stations. The study was conducted at 15-day intervals for six months, from January 2021 to June 2021. Fish for the study were collected from various locations along the Meenachil River by local fishermen . Fish morphological and morphometric identification was accomplished using standard text. The current study identified 20 species from the Meenachil river, divided into 8 orders and 11 families. The order Cypriniformes dominated with seven, followed by Siluriformes with four species. Two species were identified in the Meenachil river that were endemic to the Western Ghats, and two were endangered. Station 4 Ettumanoor recorded the most fish diversity, while station 5 Kottayam recorded the least. According to this research, the Meenachil River has a diverse fish population.
... Fresh water is home to over 10,000 fish species, accounting for roughly 40% of global fish biodiversity and one-quarter of global vertebrate biodiversity [2]. Because estimates of species richness in individual rivers are unreliable, it is almost certain that regional national inventories, museum collections, and taxonomic knowledge in many tropics are insufficient to document extinctions, and thus widespread undetected extinctions of inconspicuous species have already occurred [3]. The Meenachil River is located in the district of Kottayam. ...
The present study was conducted to gain a better understanding of the variety of freshwater fishes found in the Meenachil River. The Meenachil river is one of Kerala's major rivers. The Meenachil River has an abundance of indigenous fishery resources as well as a high level of biodiversity. The current study was carried out to identify the fishes of the five Meenachil river stations. Poonjar (station 1), Erattupetta (station 2), Pala (station 3), Ettumanoor (station 4) and Kottayam (station 5) are the stations. The study was conducted at 15-day intervals for six months, from January 2021 to June 2021. Fish for the study were collected from various locations along the Meenachil River by local fishermen. Fish morphological and morphometric identification was accomplished using standard text. The current study identified 20 species from the Meenachil river, divided into 8 orders and 11 families. The order Cypriniformes dominated with seven, followed by Siluriformes with four species. Two species were identified in the Meenachil river that were endemic to the Western Ghats, and two were endangered. Station 4 Ettumanoor recorded the most fish diversity, while station 5 Kottayam recorded the least. According to this research, the Meenachil River has a diverse fish population.
... The last century has seen a great expansion of protected areas (PAs) worldwide (Watson et al. 2014 habitat loss and with some species at risk from overharvesting (Harrison andStiassny 1999, Abell et al. 2007), FPAs have never been more topical. ...
Protected areas (PAs) have become the cornerstone management strategy for terrestrial and increasingly marine biodiversity conservation, yet freshwater protected areas (FPAs or freshwater reserves) remain rare. This is surprising considering that freshwater ecosystems, and the biodiversity they support, are among the most threatened worldwide. While rivers and lakes are more commonly used to define PA boundaries, some freshwater reserves that explicitly protect freshwater species exist. In New Zealand, whitebait reserves (areas closed to whitebait fishing) were established decades ago to protect key species (primarily galaxiids, called whitebait in New Zealand) comprising a culturally and economically important post-larval fishery. However, there has been no follow-up on the effectiveness of these whitebait reserves for conservation and fisheries sustainability since they were established. To address this, I compared whitebait reserve types established to prevent overexploitation of migratory galaxiids (mostly īnanga Galaxias maculatus) from fishing and evaluated their performance as reproductive reservoirs. I studied ten streams that were classified into three a priori types: (a) closed, (b) partially closed and (c) open (fished) streams along >500 km (3° latitude) of coastline. I found that closed streams are effective at protecting G. maculatus and demonstrated that whitebait reserves have many of the ‘reserve effects’ observed in commoner marine reserves, but there are also important differences.
Closed streams had greater abundances, biomasses and egg production of G. maculatus despite having a greater proportion of smaller fish compared to partially closed and open streams. This finding suggested that density-dependent processes may regulate G. maculatus populations in closed streams. Partially closed and open streams had greater richness of fish species than closed streams, and large, predatory fishes were more prevalent in closed streams. There was slight evidence that partially closed streams conferred some fisheries benefits compared to streams open to fishing.
Next, I applied the concepts of density dependence and the theory of compensatory density dependence to gain clarity on what the effects of population density were on individual growth rates and fecundity, and whether density-dependent (DD) or density-independent (DI) factors enhance or diminish the effects of whitebait reserves. In particular, I examined the additive and interactive effects of individual size, population density and stream temperature on individual growth rates and fecundity. I found that population density and stream temperature interacted to affect growth rates of post-recruit G. maculatus, but juvenile mortality rates in G. maculatus were not strongly affected by density. However, I did not observe negative DD effects on the fecundity of G. maculatus within whitebait reserves. This is a consequence of the amphidromous, annual, semelparous life-history of G. maculatus in New Zealand coastal waterways.
Overall, this doctoral research advances critical knowledge gaps on the effectiveness of whitebait reserves for conservation and fisheries sustainability of G. maculatus. It seems clear that remediation of in-stream and requisite riparian spawning habitats of the current whitebait reserves is necessary for substantially enhancing their reproductive benefits. Rehabilitation of feeding, foraging and spawning habitats will reduce the negative DD effects on individual growth, increase the sizes of spawning fish, increase per-capita egg production, and obviate the prevailing occurrence of ‘sink’ populations with no effective habitat for egg deposition. Such remediation would necessarily involve a more holistic view of whitebait reserves within the context of species’ requirements throughout their entire life-history.
... However, 99.7% of the freshwater is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps, stored as groundwater, or trapped in permafrost or soil moisture (Harrison, 1999.) [3] In actuality, the more than 10,250 freshwater fish species (as well as all other animals with a freshwater habitat restriction) only have access to around 0.009% of the total amount of water on Earth. We face competition from other organisms like fish for this finite supply of freshwater. ...
... Different criteria have been proposed to delimit the faunal regions according to the diversity of the ichthyofauna in Mexico (Miller et al. 2005;Abell et al. 2008;Lira-Noriega et al. 2015). One of the most used is the one proposed by Miller et al. (2005), who distinguishes eight provinces: Bravo River, Northwest Pacific, Baja California Peninsula, Tamesi (Harrison and Stiassny 1999). (2) The Mesa Central, which includes the Lerma-Santiago basin, we can find 23 families and 103 species, which resulted from the confluence of Neotropical and Nearctic fauna (Miller et al. 2005;Contreras-MacBeath et al. 2014). ...
Fishes are the most diverse group of vertebrates with 36,179 valid species, of which 45% of them are freshwater fishes. This freshwater fish diversity is extraordinary considering that they only occupy 0.02% of the aquatic habitat. However, their ecosystems have been under a strong human pressure which has intensified in the last decades. Nearly 83% of the freshwater habitats worldwide show some impact, which have resulted in the drastic decline in freshwater fish species. Among the most important threats are habitat loss, water pollution, and introduction of non-native species. Mexico harbors more than 600 species of which 264 are endemic (43%), and nearly 30% are threatened due to human impact. The conservation status for the Mexican ichthyofauna is worrying due to the recent assessment by the IUCN that showed that 165 species are classified under some category of threat. In the present chapter we describe the Global and Mexican freshwater diversity, and the major threats for their conservation. Additionally, we selected three ecoregions: (1) Cuatro Cienegas, (2) Lerma River, and (3) Grijalva River, based on both their diversity and contrasting differences in anthropic pressures, to assess the effect that the human footprint has had on its fish diversity and their threats. Our results showed that all sites had high percentages of threatened freshwater fish species, the Lerma River with 63.6%, Grijalva River with 59.8%, and Cuatro Cienegas with 42.9% threatened species. Regarding the human footprint on these ecoregions, Cuatro Cienegas showed the least human modification; however, 46.88% of the native fish and 18.75% of its threatened fish species occur in degraded sites. Grijalva and Lerma Rivers had a similar area and percentage of human modification, but for the Lerma River, 92% of native fish and 72.67% of its threatened fish species occur in degraded sites. Based on our results and analysis, we provide some recommendations for filling important research gaps and proposed conservation strategies for the freshwater fish fauna of Mexico.
... Overexploitation, flow alteration, habitat degradation, invasion by foreign species, pollution, including the worldwide issue of eutrophication (Harrison et al., 1999;Dudgeon et al., 2006) [19,20] , are all interconnected threats to fish biodiversity. Farmers also use various chemical fertilisers to increase crop production, which leads to eutrophication and lowers the level of dissolved oxygen in water bodies, harming the diversity of fish at the same time (Rathore et al., 2016;Savci, 2012) [21,22] . ...
This book tends to investigate various aspects of freshwater non-native fish species in six chapters. In the first chapter, definitions and introductory concepts in this field are discussed. Undoubtedly, one of the most critical aspects of investigating these species’ impacts is recognizing their ecological and socio-economic consequences and is the second chapters’ central objective. In this chapter, several examples of the conducted research on the ecological concepts of alien fishes have been investigated. For sure, dealing with these species will only be possible by setting laws, legislation, and regulations. The third chapter outlines the existing international laws and regulations and national laws and regulations in the United States of America, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, and Iran. Risk assessment protocols are one of the most significant concerns for non-native species, and species distribution modeling is embedded as a tool into them. All of them are discussed in chapter four. Moreover, there have been some efforts to identify different exotic fish species, assess their distribution in Iran, and determine their biological characteristics. Now, the main concern is how to manage these species so that there could be low impacts on natural ecosystems. Chapter five is the subject of the discussion and investigates the different methods of controlling non-native fishes introduced in freshwater ecosystems. Finally, the last chapter is devoted to non-native fishes introduced in the freshwater ecosystems of Iran. In this chapter, different characteristics of these species include taxonomy, identification and morphological characteristics, distribution in the world and Iran, various biological aspects such as habitat, nutrition and reproduction, ecological and socio-economic impacts, and their current status in the country are discussed. An important feature of this chapter is the review of studies on various aspects of these species in the country.
ماهیان غیربومی، گونههایی هستند که تصادفی یا عامدانه توسط انسان به مناطقی در بیرون از دامنه طبیعی پراکنش خود وارد شده و در آنجا زیست میکنند. برخی از این گونهها به دلیل تواناییهایی مانند قدرت تولیدمثل بالا، همهچیزخواری و تحمل دامنه وسیعی از شرایط محیطی، وقتی به محیط جدیدی وارد میشوند باعث ایجاد تغییرات و پیامدهای اکولوژیک گسترده شده و با به مخاطره انداختن گونههای بومی و ایجاد خسارتهای اقتصادی-اجتماعی فراوان، به گونه آفت در آن منطقه تبدیل میشوند؛ در این صورت به آنها، گونههای غیربومی مهاجم گفته میشود. رودخانهها و تالابهای ایران با عواملی مانند خشکسالی و آلودگی روبهرو هستند و علاوه بر آن، ورود گونههای غیربومی ازجمله ماهیان نیز شرایط را برای این اکوسیستمها بحرانیتر کرده است. کتاب حاضر با هدف شناخت هر چه بیشتر ماهیان غیربومی اکوسیستمهای آب شیرین، بررسی اثرات اکولوژیکی و اقتصادی-اجتماعی و کنترل و مدیریت این گونهها، به رشته تحریر درآمده است.
This book offers a comprehensive account of the current state of inland waters in tropical and subtropical East Asia, exploring a series of case studies of freshwater fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals and water bodies at particular risk. The book highlights the rich freshwater biodiversity of tropical East Asia and draws attention to the various threats it faces due to human activities and rapid environmental change. It addresses the question of whether the contributions of these animals and habitats, or biodiversity in general, to ecosystem functioning and service provision provide sufficient basis for arguments supporting nature conservation. Drawing on instances from the rivers and lakes of tropical East Asia, the book also asks whether the benefits accruing from intact ecosystems are likely to be enough to ensure their preservation. If the answer to either or both these questions is ʼno’, then what are the prospects for freshwater biodiversity in rapidly changing tropical East Asia? This book will be of interest to students and scholars of biodiversity, conservation, freshwater ecology, ecosystem services and Asian Studies.
Globally, freshwater biodiversity and the food system that it underpins are under enormous threat. Historically damaged by overfishing, environmental deterioration (e.g., pollution, damming, water extraction and watershed modification) is now destroying canonical ecosystem structure. Under pressure to secure the food supply and create jobs, local politicians are reluctant to enforce rules that would reduce fishing pressure and threaten the already vulnerable economies of many fishing communities. Aquaculture can directly address food supply but has in the past been troubled with its own negative environmental footprint. New technology is available to solve these problems. Modern aquaculture, as a commercial alternative to capture fishing can take advantage of existing infrastructure to grow more food, but more importantly, create new and better jobs in places where few alternatives exist, making economic and local political space for policies that operate for both food production and the protection of aquatic biodiversity. This opinion seeks to revise the current vision of aquaculture as a competitor and threat to inland fisheries, arguing rather that the way to approach the biodiversity crisis in freshwater is to create economic alternatives to fishing and environmental abuse so that poor people can afford to care about nature.
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