Can the “10-year fishing ban” rescue biodiversity of the Yangtze River?

Wang, Haijun; Wang, Puze; Xu, Chi; Sun, Yeneng; Shi, Lei; Zhang, Long; Xie, Ping

doi:10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100235

Cited by 25 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Fish stocking and overfishing in natural freshwater ecosystems are two widespread and long‐term human activities that lead to alterations in ecosystem functions and services globally (Eby et al 2006; Hammerschlag et al 2019; Wang et al 2022). In recent decades, China has increased its contribution to the largest global freshwater aquaculture production from 38.5% in 1980 to 63.6% in 2011 (Jia et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carp stocking and climate change are potentially more important factors than nutrient enrichment driving water quality deterioration in subtropical freshwater lakes in China

Chen

et al. 2022

Limnology & Oceanography

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Freshwater lakes across the world have undergone dramatic changes in biological components and water quality over the past several decades. Previous studies focused on potential drivers mainly on nutrient enrichment in the catchment. However, the relative importance of climate change and the top-down cascade effects of fish stocking on water quality is not fully understood. Here, by compiling 155 lakes data with four periods of field investigation in subtropical lakes in China, we found no significant changes in water total nitrogen and total phosphorus in the past two decades. However, the phytoplankton abundance increased significantly, and the water clarity declined by 44.1%. We further found that carp stocking and climate change are potentially more important than nutrients driving water quality change, which is also evidenced in two lakes (Lake Donghu and Qiandao) with long-term monitoring histories. Specifically, carp stocking can decrease the water clarity directly by stirring up sediment and indirectly by trophic cascade along the food web. For climatic factors, mean annual temperature (MAT) has a positive effect on phytoplankton abundance, while mean annual precipitation has a negative one, with climates overall having little effect on water clarity. In addition, nutrient enrichment and climate change also have strong interactions with carp stocking, which may enhance the top-down effects on water quality. Our findings highlight that either MAT or carp stocking may become an overwhelming driver of water clarity decline, which provides new insights into the conservation strategy for water quality management in the subtropical lakes in China.The cluster of subtropical lakes in the Yangtze River floodplain is one of the largest groups of shallow lakes in East Asia (Wang and Dou 1998). These lakes are among the most threatened ecosystems in China due to long-term intense anthropogenic pressure and water quality degradation. More than 40% of lakes in this region were in a eutrophic state. Previous studies have assessed the long-term changes in water quality across the floodplain lakes indirectly by reconstructing paleolimnological records (Xu et al. 2017;Zhang et al. 2019) and remote sensing archives (Feng et al. 2019a,b;Hou et al. 2020). However, to date, direct long-term data from large-scale spatial investigation is scarce.Water clarity is a fundamental characteristic of lakes and provides general information on water quality. It reflects how

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carp stocking and climate change are potentially more important factors than nutrient enrichment driving water quality deterioration in subtropical freshwater lakes in China

Chen

et al. 2022

Limnology & Oceanography

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“…The 10‐year fishing ban in the Yangtze River has, therefore, significantly increased the amount of food for finless porpoises (Wang et al, 2022a), guaranteeing the potential for their return to their historical habitat range. In the first year of the fishing ban, finless porpoises repeatedly appeared in many locations of the Yangtze River.…”

Section: Improving the Conservation Status Of The Yangtze River Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Freshwater biodiversity conservation in China: Progress in the Yangtze River basin

Zhang

2022

Aquatic Conservation

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China is the world's most populous country and fourth largest in area, and has 7% of the world's area of arable land to feed one-fifth of the world's population. China covers a distance of 5,000 km from west to east with five climatic zones ranging from sub-arctic to subtropical. It has 3,862 marine and freshwater fish species (accounting for 20.0% of the global fish species). Of these, 1,323 are freshwater species, accounting for 9.6% of global fish species. This indicates a

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“…However, lakes have suffered a significant loss of submerged vegetation in the past decades due to human activities such as reclamation of paddy fields and aquaculture ponds, anthropogenic regulation of water levels, over-stocking of herbivorous fish, urbanization, and eutrophication (Du et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2022). These human activities have led to an increase in water turbidity and resulting sharp shrinkage in the distribution of submerged vegetation and shift in species composition from diverse species to homogeneous and/or seasonal species such as Potamogeton crispus (Liu and Wang, 2010;Zhang et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of artificial spawning substrates to support lacustrine fish recruitment and fisheries enhancement in a Chinese lake

Feng

Yuan²,

Zhang³

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Lake littoral zones with abundant submerged vegetation are considered to harbor diverse biotic communities and additionally serve as spawning grounds for important fishery resources. In recent decades, due to various human activities submerged vegetation in lakes have declined dramatically resulting in the function loss of spawning grounds. In order to enhance the recruitment of lacustrine fish (mainly Carassius auratus and Cyprinus carpio) and the proliferation of fishery resources, we explored a method of constructing artificial spawning ground based on artificial spawning substrate in lake. The results of present study indicate that the artificial substrates with complex and dense three-dimensional structure which have enough space to enable material exchange and oxygen circulation could be efficient to enhance fish recruitment. The water temperature of spawning peaks of artificial substrates were within the range of 20 ~ 25°C, and the water temperature provides a basis for the deployment period of artificial spawning grounds. The spawning substrate in the upper layer of water column was more attractive for fish to spawn. The above results provide guidance for the deployment of artificial spawning grounds from both temporal and spatial scales. Observations on the behavior of aggregations found that spawning activities mainly occurred at night and in the early morning. The abundance of larger individuals (>20 cm), as potential spawning groups, increased during this period. The above findings are informative to the construction and management of artificial spawning ground in lakes.

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Can the “10-year fishing ban” rescue biodiversity of the Yangtze River?

Cited by 25 publications

References 3 publications

Carp stocking and climate change are potentially more important factors than nutrient enrichment driving water quality deterioration in subtropical freshwater lakes in China

Carp stocking and climate change are potentially more important factors than nutrient enrichment driving water quality deterioration in subtropical freshwater lakes in China

Freshwater biodiversity conservation in China: Progress in the Yangtze River basin

Application of artificial spawning substrates to support lacustrine fish recruitment and fisheries enhancement in a Chinese lake

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