Fish occurrence in the Kuban River Basin (Russia).

Oleg Artaev,Boris Levin,Maksim Saprykin,Dmitriy Vekhov,Marina Levina,Maksim Shapovalov,Andrey Pashkov

doi:10.3897/bdj.9.e76701

Abstract

BackgroundThis publication describes a dataset containing information on 1328 occurrences of fishes in the Kuban River Basin, the longest river of Northern Caucasus and representing its own freshwater ecoregion (428 Kuban Ecoregion). All observations have precise geo-referencing with the names of water bodies (rivers, lakes etc.). The dataset is based on both literature data (509 occurrences) and our own sampling (814 occurrences). Observations were carried out between 1889 and 2020.New informationThe majority (> 61%) of occurrences in the presented data are published for the first time. This extended dataset contributes significantly to fish fauna survey in the Kuban River ecoregion.

Highlights

Ichthyofauna of the Kuban River system is comprised of three groups: the species inhabiting other European rivers, the species inhabiting brackish waters of the Azov Sea and migrated to the Kuban, as well as by the endemic species found only in the Kuban Basin
The Middle Kuban River is considered an important place for the conservation of freshwater fishes in the Caucasus (Freyhof et al 2020)
The Kuban Basin is a separate ecoregion (428 in Abell et al 2008), fish fauna of which is distinct from other ecoregions of the Caucasus

Summary

Background

This publication describes a dataset containing information on 1328 occurrences of fishes in the Kuban River Basin, the longest river of Northern Caucasus and representing its own freshwater ecoregion (428 Kuban Ecoregion). All observations have precise georeferencing with the names of water bodies (rivers, lakes etc.). The dataset is based on both literature data (509 occurrences) and our own sampling (814 occurrences). Observations were carried out between 1889 and 2020. The majority (> 61%) of occurrences in the presented data are published for the first time. This extended dataset contributes significantly to fish fauna survey in the Kuban River ecoregion

Introduction

Sampling methods