Freshwater habitat invaders: Impacts on artificial flow refuge use by native fish under pulsed flows.

Autor: Costa MJ; Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. Electronic address: mariajcosta@tecnico.ulisboa.pt., Leite R; Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal., Merianne A; Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal., Santos JM; Forest Research Centre, School of Agriculture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal., Boavida I; Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2024 Dec 10; Vol. 955, pp. 176924. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 18.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176924
Abstrakt: Flow regulation and the spread of invasive species are significant threats to freshwater biodiversity, including native fish communities in rivers across the globe. The bleak (Alburnus alburnus), an invasive fish currently widespread throughout the main rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, threatens native fish biodiversity, mostly via trophic competition and hybridisation. In this study, we assessed the impacts of bleak presence and rapid flow fluctuations (both main and interactive effects) on the use of artificial habitats (a flow refuge) and the stress physiology of barbels. We examined how bleak's presence influenced the selection of flow refuges by the native Iberian barbel (Luciobarbus bocagei) under base (continuous 7 L s -1 flow stimulus) and pulsed (7 L s -1 to a 60 L s -1 pulse) flows in an indoor flume. We quantified habitat use within three specific regions of two installed flow refuges and two physiological responses (glucose and lactate) associated with the stress axis. The results indicated that the presence of bleak significantly reduced flow refuge use by barbels and this effect was more prominent during pulsed flows. Additionally, barbels exhibited higher levels of glucose and lactate in the presence of bleaks. These results show that bleaks compete with barbels for habitat under fluctuating flows and induce physiological adjustments that may reduce the ability of barbels to find low-velocity areas to shelter. Overall, the bleaks had a competitive advantage under high flow variability. This underscores the need for further studies and effective management strategies to protect native freshwater fish communities in the context of biological invasions and anthropogenic flow variability.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: M. J. Costa reports financial support was provided by Foundation for Science and Technology. R. Leite reports financial support was provided by Foundation for Science and Technology. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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