Climate Change and Species Invasion Drive Decadal Variation in Fish Fauna in the Min River, China

Weide Deng,Li Lin,Bin Kang,Xiaoxia Huang,Te-Yu Liao

doi:10.3390/w12061558

Weide Deng, Li Lin + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061558

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Abstract

Freshwater fishes are threatened by increasing environmental changes and human disturbances. The Min River, the largest river in Southeastern China, contains unique fish fauna for the Oriental realm. Due to environmental changes brought by forty years of economic growth, fish numbers have dramatically declined. The average taxonomic distinctness in the 1970s was significantly higher than that in 2015, while no significant differences were found in the variation in taxonomic distinctness between the two periods. Due to the river network and habitat diversity, fish fauna composition showed significant spatial differences but lower variation than the decadal variation. Precipitation was determined to be the most influential factor in determining the spatial pattern of fish fauna, followed by temperature. Species introduced for aquaculture have invaded the endemic fish community after escape and should be reconsidered in the trade-offs between economic development and ecological protection.

Highlights

Freshwater fishes are among the most fragile fauna types due to the synergistic effects of climate change [1], species invasion [2], overfishing [3], hydropower [4], and navigation [5]
We identified the current species and their distribution based on our recent survey and quantified the variations in spatial pattern and decadal composition; the environmental variables and their associations with faunal variation were further discussed
In 2015, the diversity declined to 80 freshwater fish species belonging genera, 16 16 families, andand

Summary

Introduction

Freshwater fishes are among the most fragile fauna types due to the synergistic effects of climate change [1], species invasion [2], overfishing [3], hydropower [4], and navigation [5]. Climate change can act on hydrologic regimes, water temperatures, dissolved oxygen content, and pollutant toxicity [6,7]. These variations could make eutrophication and stratification relatively stronger and more complicated in lentic areas and alter habitat availability and quality in lotic areas [1]. In developing megadiverse countries, the demands of economic development and nascent control of species trades have resulted a high number of invasions by nonnative species and associated negative impacts [12]

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