Abstract
The Amazon sailfin catfish Pterygoplichthys pardalis is native to the Amazon River basin. It has since expanded its range to North America, the Caribbean, and more recently to South Asia, as with some of its congeners. Our paper reviews recent data from Bangladesh, clarifies taxonomic identification, and examines the potential effects of P. pardalis and congeneric species on local aquatic ecosystems and elsewhere in South Asia. Range expansions there probably reflect aquarium releases and escapes from aquaculture farms, as exacerbated by dispersal due to storm flooding and in impacted waters like irrigation canals. Given their potential ecosystem-level effects, we also review potential control mechanisms and human use for these invasive loricariids.
Highlights
Suckermouth armored catfishes (Loricariidae) are in the largest family of the order Siluriformes, with about 80 genera and over 700 species that naturally occur in South and Central American waters [1]
To assess the invasive threat, we examine the trophic, habitat, and reproductive ecology of sailfin catfishes
Eighteen suckermouth armored catfishes were captured from five localities in the Ganges-Brahmaputra River drainage of Bangladesh during 2007–2012 (Table 1)
Summary
Suckermouth armored catfishes (Loricariidae) are in the largest family of the order Siluriformes, with about 80 genera and over 700 species that naturally occur in South and Central American waters [1]. Bangladesh has ≈266 fish species in freshwater ecosystems, including species introduced for aquaculture for human consumption and biocontrol of malaria [11]. Fishes 2018, 3, 14 fish species and ≈25 exotic ornamental fish species are established in Bangladeshi freshwaters [11,12,13,14,15,16] The effects of these introduced fishes on local ecosystems have not been properly assessed, and a lack of information precludes their management. Our study reviews recent data of Pterygoplichthys spp. in Bangladesh [16], clarifies taxonomic identification, and examines the potential effects of P. pardalis and congeneric species on local aquatic ecosystems and those elsewhere in South Asia. Globally oriented, exotic fish treatises reported loricariids under Hypostomus spp. because their systematics was still unknown [17,18], whereas that of Fuller et al [4] focused on North America
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