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Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity and Functionality of Aquatic Ecosystems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 March 2021) | Viewed by 45505

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Pietro Volta

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Guest Editor

Water Research Institute, National Research Council of Italy, IRSA-CNR, Largo Tonolli, 50, 28922 Verbania-Pallanza, Italy
Interests: fishery ecology; fish biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Erik Jeppesen

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor

1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, 8600 Silkeborg, Denmark
2. Limnology Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Ecosystem Research and Implementation, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey
Interests: aquatic ecology; biological structure and interactions with the nutrient dynamics and climate in lakes; lake restoration; lake re-establishment; paleoecology; ecosystem modelling
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fish play a key role in the food web dynamics of freshwater ecosystems as well as in the provision of services for human societies. Despite their importance, freshwater fish all around the world are under multiple pressures of anthropogenic and climatic origin, which often interact with each other. Eutrophication, chemical pollution, overfishing, water abstraction, and river morphology alteration, as well as novel emerging contaminants are only some examples of the pressures impacting freshwater fish.

In this Special Issue, we aim to collect reviews and significant case studies focusing on the impact of human activities and climatic pressure on freshwater fish at different levels of their organization (e.g., species, genus, family, assemblages) in rivers and lakes all around the world and, if available, successful solutions to counteract them. Case studies and reviews can also consider species that only partially spend their lives in freshwater, such as salmon, trout, sturgeons, and eels, but, nevertheless, need freshwater to complete their life cycle.

Dr. Pietro Volta
Prof. Dr. Erik Jeppesen
Guest Editors

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Keywords

freshwater fish
fish biodiversity
anthpogenic pressures
climate change
adaptive management
fisheries
flag fish species

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research, Review

4 pages, 171 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish

by Pietro Volta and Erik Jeppesen

Water 2021, 13(21), 3068; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13213068 - 2 Nov 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2854

Abstract

Fish are the vertebrates that count most species on Earth [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review

19 pages, 3024 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Spoiled for Choice during Cold Season? Habitat Use and Potential Impacts of the Invasive Silurus glanis L. in a Deep, Large, and Oligotrophic Lake (Lake Maggiore, North Italy)

by Vanessa De Santis and Pietro Volta

Water 2021, 13(18), 2549; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13182549 - 17 Sep 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5347

Abstract

The ecological features of invasive alien species are crucial for their effective management. However, they are often lacking in newly invaded ecosystems. This is the case of the European catfish Silurus glanis L. in Lake Maggiore, where the species is present since 1990, but no scientific information is available on its ecology. To start filling this knowledge gap, 236 catfish (67 cm to 150 cm of total length) were collected, measured, and dissected for stomach content analyses from three localities and in two habitats (littoral vs. pelagic) in late autumn/early winter. The NPUE and BPUE (individuals (N) and biomass (B, in grams) per unit effort (m²), respectively) of catfish were generally higher in littoral (NPUE > 0.01; BPUE > 96) than in pelagic habitats (NPUE < 0.009; BPUE < 114), but the catfish had, on average, larger sizes in pelagic habitats. Overall, 581 individual prey items were recorded, belonging to 12 taxa. Pelagic catfish specialized their diet exclusively on three prey fish (coregonids, shad, and roach), whilst the diet of littoral catfish was more variable and dominated by crayfish, perch, and roach. These results highlighted for the first time the interaction of larger catfish with the lake’s pelagic food web, and thus possible consequences are discussed, including the potential contrasting role S. glanis may have for the lake’s fishery. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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18 pages, 2770 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Incidence of Watershed Land Use on the Consumption of Meso and Microplastics by Fish Communities in Uruguayan Lowland Streams

by Camila Vidal, Juan Pablo Lozoya, Giancarlo Tesitore, Guillermo Goyenola and Franco Teixeira-de-Mello

Water 2021, 13(11), 1575; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13111575 - 2 Jun 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3904

Abstract

Physical-chemical and biologicaldiversity of streams are influenced by the land use in their watersheds. Plastics currently make up the most important waste asset, representing an important part of the transported and accumulated material in water courses. This work analyzes the consumption of plastics debris by the fish communities in streams with two contrasting types of land use. We worked with threestreams impacted by urbanization and threeby extensive ranching. The stomach and intestinal contents of 309 individuals of 29 species were analyzed, by a modified alkaline digestion, and observed under a stereo microscope with polarized light. A total of 373 plastic itemswere found, of which the majority corresponded to fibers (318). A significant difference was found between the percentage of individuals that consumed plastic debrisbetween both systems (51.6% in ranchers and 76.6% in urban, p = 0.014 Mood’s Median), but no difference was found in the average ingested per individual. This study establishes the first baseline on plastic debris consumption by fish in Uruguayan streams, showing the extent of the plastic and microplastic pollution problem. Although there are differences between the analyzed sites, we also observed significant contamination in streams far from urbanization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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20 pages, 2398 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Food Webs and Fish Size Patterns in Insular Lakes Partially Support Climate-Related Features in Continental Lakes

by Nicolas Vidal, Susanne L. Amsinck, Vítor Gonçalves, José M. Neto Azevedo, Liselotte S. Johansson, Kirsten S. Christoffersen, Torben L. Lauridsen, Martin Søndergaard, Rikke Bjerring, Frank Landkildehus, Klaus P. Brodersen, Mariana Meerhoff and Erik Jeppesen

Water 2021, 13(10), 1380; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13101380 - 15 May 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3105

Abstract

Disentangling the effects of climate change on nature is one of the main challenges facing ecologists nowadays. Warmer climates forces strong effects on lake biota for fish, leading to a reduction in size, changes in diet, more frequent reproduction, and stronger cascading effects. Space-for-time substitution studies (SFTS) are often used to unravel climate effects on lakes biota; however, results from continental lakes are potentially confounded by biogeographical and evolutionary differences, also leading to an overall higher fish species richness in warm lakes. Such differences may not be found in lakes on remote islands, where natural fish free lakes have been subjected to stocking only during the past few hundred years. We studied 20 species-poor lakes located in two remote island groups with contrasting climates, but similar seasonality: the Faroe Islands (cold; 6.5 ± 2.8 °C annual average (SD) and the Azores Islands (warm; 17.3 ± 2.9 °C)). As for mainland lakes, mean body size of fish in the warmer lakes were smaller overall, and phytoplankton per unit of phosphorus higher. The δ¹³C carbon range for basal organisms, and for the whole food web, appeared wider in colder lakes. In contrast to previous works in continental fresh waters, Layman metrics of the fish food web were similar between the two climatic regions. Our results from insular systems provide further evidence that ambient temperatures, at least partially, drive the changes in fish size structure and the cascading effects found along latitude gradients in lakes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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16 pages, 2966 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Changes in Pelagic Fish Community Composition, Abundance, and Biomass along a Productivity Gradient in Subtropical Lakes

by Jinlei Yu, Wei Zhen, Lingyang Kong, Hu He, Yongdong Zhang, Xiangdong Yang, Feizhou Chen, Min Zhang, Zhengwen Liu and Erik Jeppesen

Water 2021, 13(6), 858; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13060858 - 21 Mar 2021

Cited by 26 | Viewed by 4240

Abstract

How fish communities change with eutrophication in temperate lakes is well documented, while only a few studies are available from subtropical lakes. We investigate the fish community structure in 36 lakes located in the Yangtze River basin, covering a wide nutrient gradient. We found that fish species richness and total fish catch per unit effort (CPUE) increased significantly with chlorophyll a (Chla). Among the different feeding types, the proportion of zooplanktivores increased significantly with Chla, while the percentage of omnibenthivores showed no obvious changes; the CPUE of piscivorous Culter spp. increased with Chla, while their proportion of total catch decreased pronouncedly. Based on the index of relative importance (IRI), the most important and dominant fish species was the zooplanktivorous Sijiao (Toxabramis swinhonis), followed by the omniplanktivorous sharpbelly (Hemiculter leucisculus) and the omnibenthivorous crucian carp (Carassius carassius), a small-sized species belonging to the Cyprinidae family. The CPUE of these three species increased significantly with Chla. The focus has, so far, been directed at large fish, but as emphasized by our results, the abundant small fish species were dominant in our subtropical study lakes even in terms of biomass, and, accordingly, we recommend that more attention be paid to the population dynamics of these species in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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16 pages, 3450 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How Did the Late 1980s Climate Regime Shift Affect Temperature-Sensitive Fish Population Dynamics: Case Study of Vendace (Coregonus albula) in a Large North-Temperate Lake

by Külli Kangur, Kai Ginter, Andu Kangur, Peeter Kangur and Tõnu Möls

Water 2020, 12(10), 2694; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12102694 - 26 Sep 2020

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2905

Abstract

The population dynamics of fish in northern lakes is strongly influenced by climatic factors. In this study, we investigated whether there is a link between the late 1980s climate regime shift in Europe and the collapse of vendace (Coregonus albula) population at the same time in Lake Peipsi. Until the end of the 1980s, vendace was very abundant in the lake, but then its catches sharply declined. This decline inspired investigations into the extreme weather events preceding the vendace collapse using data on daily water temperatures and ice phenology together with commercial fishery statistics since 1931 and test catch data since 1986. We identified using advanced statistical methods that the hot summer of 1988, which was accompanied by a severe cyanobacterial bloom and extensive fish kill, and the subsequent non-permanent ice cover and early ice-offs in 1989 and 1990 in Lake Peipsi were the main reasons for the disappearance of vendace from catches in 1991. Moreover, a negative correlation appeared between catches of the predatory pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) and vendace. Predation pressure as well as fish habitat degradation caused by lake eutrophication may contribute to the instability of the vendace population too. Our study showed that extreme weather events such as heat waves in summer and non-permanent ice-cover in winter in consecutive years may have long-lasting harmful effects on the population abundance of cool-water fish species such as vendace whose eggs usually develop under an ice cover in north-temperate lakes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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20 pages, 4041 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Endemic Freshwater Fish Range Shifts Related to Global Climate Changes: A Long-Term Study Provides Some Observational Evidence for the Mediterranean Area

by Antonella Carosi, Rosalba Padula, Lucia Ghetti and Massimo Lorenzoni

Water 2019, 11(11), 2349; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112349 - 8 Nov 2019

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4287

Abstract

Climate changes will lead to a worsening of the ecological conditions, in terms of hydrological instability and rising water temperatures, of the Mediterranean rivers. Freshwater fishes inhabiting this area can be threatened in the near future by accelerating drought and decreased ecological connectivity. The main aim of the research was to analyze changes in the distribution of the endemic freshwater fishes Padogobius nigricans, Squalius lucumonis and Telestes muticellus in the Tiber River basin (Italy), within a proven period of climate warming, in terms of increasing water temperature and droughts. A multivariate analysis was conducted using fish and environmental data collected in 117 sites over the years 1990–2017. For the three species, population abundance, age structure and body condition were analyzed. Detectability, occupancy, local extinction and colonization processes were also examined. We showed that S. lucumonis and T. muticellus have shifted their distributions upstream, likely in order to reach their thermal optimum. Padogobius nigricans did not move upstream significantly, since the species is characterized by limited vagility and thus a low dispersal capability in a context of high river fragmentation. In the study area, elevation and river barriers seem to play a key role in extirpation and colonization processes; for S. lucumonis and T. muticellus the extinction probability decreased with increasing altitude, while for P. nigricans the colonization probability decreased with an increasing degree of river fragmentation. These results highlight how species-specific dispersal ability can lead to varying adaptability to climate change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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Review

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20 pages, 1152 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Do Freshwater Fish Eat Microplastics? A Review with A Focus on Effects on Fish Health and Predictive Traits of MPs Ingestion

by Silvia Galafassi, Claudia Campanale, Carmine Massarelli, Vito Felice Uricchio and Pietro Volta

Water 2021, 13(16), 2214; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13162214 - 14 Aug 2021

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 7358

Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) have received increasing attention in the last decade and are now considered among the most concerning emerging pollutants in natural environments. Here, the current knowledge on microplastic ingestion by wild freshwater fish is reviewed with a focus on the identification of possible factors leading to the ingestion of MPs and the consequences on fish health. Within the literature, 257 species of freshwater fishes from 32 countries have been documented to ingest MPs. MPs ingestion was found to increase with rising level of urbanization, although a direct correlation with MPs concentration in the surrounding water has not been identified. MPs ingestion was detected in all the published articles, with MPs presence in more than 50% of the specimens analyzed in one study out of two. Together with the digestive tract, MPs were also found in the gills, and there is evidence that MPs can translocate to different tissues of the organism. Strong evidence, therefore, exists that MPs may represent a serious risk for ecosystems, and are a direct danger for human health. Moreover, toxicological effects have also been highlighted in wild catches, demonstrating the importance of this problem and suggesting the need for laboratory experiments more representative of the environmental situation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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17 pages, 3188 KiB

Open AccessReview

Status of Endemic Freshwater Fish Fauna Inhabiting Major Lakes of Turkey under the Threats of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Disturbances: A Review

by Daniela Giannetto and Deniz Innal

Water 2021, 13(11), 1534; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13111534 - 29 May 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4883

Abstract

Due to its peculiar geographical position and its environmental heterogeneity, Turkey represents an important biodiversity hotspot for freshwater fish fauna. Unfortunately, native fish communities of Turkey, mainly from lentic ecosystems, have been massively altered in the past decades. Furthermore, these species, especially the endemic species, are now threatened by several human activities in addition to the global issue of climatic changes. The aim of this paper is to provide an updated review on the current status of endemic fish species from main lakes of Turkey including major threats affecting fish assemblages. By gathering data from the literature and authors’ personal observations, 62 endemic fish species were reported to occur in the considered 37 Turkish Lakes. The presence of non-native species, agriculture activities, climatic drought, and decreasing water level were found to be the threats that most affect the fish communities of the considered Turkish Lakes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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37 pages, 2052 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Review of Methods to Repair and Maintain Lithophilic Fish Spawning Habitat

by Audrey Baetz, Taaja R. Tucker, Robin L. DeBruyne, Alex Gatch, Tomas Höök, Jason L. Fischer and Edward F. Roseman

Water 2020, 12(9), 2501; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12092501 - 8 Sep 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4376

Abstract

Rocky reefs provide important spawning and refuge habitats for lithophilic spawning fishes. However, many reefs have been lost or severely degraded through anthropogenic effects like dredging, channelization, or sedimentation. Constructed reefs have been used to mitigate these effects in some systems, but these reefs are also subject to degradation which may warrant custodial maintenance. Monitoring and maintenance of natural or constructed spawning reefs are not common practices; therefore, few methodologies have been created to test the effectiveness of such tools. We conducted a literature review to assess available information on maintenance of rocky spawning habitats used by lithophilic fishes. We identified 54 rocky spawning habitat maintenance projects, most of which aimed to improve fish spawning habitats through the addition of spawning substrate (n = 33) or cleaning of substrate (n = 23). In comparison to shallow riverine studies focused on salmonids, we found little information on deep-water reefs, marine reefs, or other fish species. We discuss the possible application of potential spawning habitat cleaning methods from other disciplines (e.g., treasure hunting; archeology) that may provide effective means of reef maintenance that can be used by restoration practitioners. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Human Activities and Climate Change on Freshwater Fish)

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