Environmental factors influencing the regional distribution and local density of a small benthic fish: the stoneloach (Barbatula barbatula)

Abstract

We investigated the relationships between different environmental variables and the spatial distribution patterns of the stoneloach (Barbatula barbatula) at the stream system, the stream site, and the mesohabitat (riffle/pool) scales in south-western France. Stoneloach occurred at 240 sites (out of 554 sampling sites), chiefly close to the source, in areas at low elevation and with weak slopes. Population density at a site was primarily influenced by physical conditions. Stream width was positively related to the probability of presence of stoneloach within the stream system, but negatively related to local density. These results indicate that stoneloaches can occur in a wide range of streams, but they are less abundant in wide rivers, probably because of lower habitat heterogeneity. Slope was negatively correlated to both fish presence at the regional scale and local density, suggesting that stoneloach's swimming performance were weak under greater erosive forces. These results suggested that the distribution of populations and the density of stoneloach were governed by the suitability of physical habitat. Multi-scale studies of factors influencing a species' distribution allow to integrate patterns observed at different scales, and enhance our understanding of interactions between animals and their environment. The use of few pertinent variables in successful final models could reduce the effort and cost of data collection for water management applications.

Spatial and temporal variations of two cyprinids in a subtropical mountain reserve – a result of habitat disturbance

“…Distribution of stream fishes has been shown to be affected by variable environmental conditions, such as hydrologic regimes (Bramblett & Fausch 1991;Roy et al 2005), physical conditions (Santoul et al 2005), thermal regimes (Wehrly et al 2003) and migratory behaviour (Silvano et al 2000). Since the 1990s, global warming has also been considered a major factor affecting stream fishes, especially to those that inhabit cold waters which face shrinking suitable habitats due to increasing water temperature (Eaton & Scheller 1996;Chu et al 2005).…”

Hydromorphological conditions, potential fish habitats and the fish community in a mountain river subjected to variable human impacts, the Czarny Dunajec, Polish Carpathians

“…The increase in flow velocity in impacted sections of the study reach may also have been an important factor reducing the extent and abundance of stone loach (cf. Santoul et al, 2005). An additional negative impact on this species, especially at the limit of its occurrence, may be co-existence with brown trout, as a result of competition with its juveniles or predation by larger individuals (cf.…”

A hierarchical zero‐inflated Poisson regression model for stream fish distribution and abundance

“…Hierarchical linear and zero-inflated models Raudenbush and Bryk (2002) developed multilevel linear regression models in statistics from a frequentist point of view, and this text along with Gelman and Hill (2007) provide a useful introduction to this area. Studies in freshwater ecology using multilevel statistical models have also started to appear (Boyero and Bailey 2003;Heino et al 2004;Robson et al 2005;Santoul et al 2005). Many examples exist in the form of a nested analysis of variance (Boyero and Bailey 2003;Heino et al 2004;Robson et al 2005), random effects or mixed effects models (Li et al 2001;Magalhães et al 2002;Ballinger et al 2005;Gray et al 2005) and repeated measures analyses (e.g.…”