A review of potential factors promoting fish movement in inter‐basin water transfers, with emergent patterns from a trait‐based risk analysis for a large‐scale project in china

Abstract

Inter‐basin water transfers create new pathways between previously disjunct systems and communities. If fish movement occurs, it can lead to invasion or altered regional connectivity patterns, which could induce biotic/genetic homogenisation or synchronisation. Understanding ecological factors promoting movement is critical for predicting potential impacts during project planning, to assess ongoing effects, and to develop mediation strategies. Potential characteristics influencing movement rates were reviewed, including intrinsic traits that increase passive entrainment or active dispersal rates, extrinsic traits of the connected environments and their interactions. In order to examine patterns among these potentially influencing characteristics, a trait‐based screening method for movement and invasion risk was developed to analyse linked communities in a database from a large‐scale inter‐basin water diversion in China. Groups of fishes that scored high in the risk assessment were compared with worldwide examples of entrainment in inter‐basin water transfer systems or smaller‐scale diversions to examine emergent patterns of shared ecological characteristics. Specific traits that were most often shared in these groups, indicating a higher likelihood of movement in water diversions, include the following: a smaller body size, high adult or larval abundance, migratory behaviour, generalist and pelagic habitat preferences, and a high reproductive output. The synthesis of factors identified in this research can be used to guide future empirical studies to fill knowledge gaps regarding ecological impacts of inter‐basin water transfers or other smaller‐scale diversions on local communities and ecosystems.

Interbasin water transfer in a changing world: A new conceptual model

“…In recipient basins, enhanced flows have been linked to promoting wasteful water use, particularly in irrigation (Albiac-Murillo et al, 2003;Liu et al, 2020aLiu et al, , 2020bLiu et al, , 2020cQuinn, 1968), resulting in waterlogging (Singh, 2002) and salinisation (Iyer, 1998;McCully, 2001). The linking of two previously independent basins can also lead to invasive species passing through the transfer system (Daniels, 2004;Das, 2006), alter fish species distributions, richness and resilience (Guo et al, 2020;Schmidt et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2021), as well as facilitate the transfer of pollutants to recipient basins (Zhuang et al, 2019). The construction impacts of increasingly large schemes are also highlighted, particularly where productive agricultural land or forest is lost (Liu et al, 2020a(Liu et al, , 2020b(Liu et al, , 2020c.…”

Patterns of genetic diversity: Stepping‐stone dispersal of an invasive fish introduced by an inter‐basin water transfer project

“…Generally, IBWT consists of the donor, conduit, and recipient systems, and the recipient systems usually contain several impounded water bodies (Shumilova et al, 2018). Passive entrainment and active dispersal of fish species from a donor region to connecting impounded habits could occur in IBWT (Schmidt et al, 2020), helping invasive species move within these habitats and establish multiple invasive populations (Woodford et al, 2013). It pumps water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River using the Grand Canal as the main channel, and diverted water passes through five large lakes (Gaoyou Lake [GYL], Hongze Lake, Luoma Lake [LML], Nansi Lake [NSL], and Dongping Lake) (China Ministry of Water Resources, http://nsbd.mwr.gov.cn/).…”

“…Several other aquatic organisms, such as aquatic macrophytes and molluscs also have expanded into connected lakes in the system (Qin et al, 2019). In particular, several of the invasive fish species were native to the Yangtze estuary, and therefore, the potential invasion risk of estuarine species was evaluated in our previous study (Schmidt et al, 2020).…”

“…Generally, IBWT consists of the donor, conduit, and recipient systems, and the recipient systems usually contain several impounded water bodies (Shumilova et al, 2018). Passive entrainment and active dispersal of fish species from a donor region to connecting impounded habits could occur in IBWT (Schmidt et al, 2020), helping invasive species move within these habitats and establish multiple invasive populations (Woodford et al, 2013). However, large‐scale dispersal processes and the genetic diversity patterns that are thereby shaped remain unclear.…”

Development and characterization of 14 novel microsatellite markers for an invasive goby ( Tridentiger bifasciatus ) in water transfer system

“…Inter‐basin water transfer projects (IBWTs) have been recognized as one of the major pathways of fish invasions by connecting previous isolated donor and recipient drainage basins (Meador, 1992). Knowing the origin of invasive species, its dispersal process cross the geographic range and population demographic dynamics plays significant roles in evaluating invasion risk (Schmidt et al., 2019), predicting potential distribution (Gallardo & Aldridge, 2018) and understanding invasion mechanisms, particularly related to water diversions. Studying the genetic patterns among populations by neutral molecular markers is widely used to reconstruct invasion history containing such aspects (Estoup & Guliiemaud, 2010; Cristescu, 2015).…”