The use of fish in ecological assessments

Abstract

Fish provide powerful tools for assessing aquatic environments. Three attributes are especially significant: the sensitivity of fish to most forms of human disturbance, their usefulness at all levels of biological organization and the favourable benefit-to-cost ratio offish assessment programmes. Fish can be used as indicators over wide temporal and spatial ranges. Because they cover all trophic levels of consumer ecology, fish can effectively integrate the whole range of ecological processes in waterways. Fish have been used in many different roles for assessing river health and monitoring responses to remedial management. Three of these applications appear to have particular value for management of Australian rivers: (i) automated systems monitoring fish ventilation can provide sensitive, broad-spectrum and continuous sensing of water quality to protect receiving waters or water-supply intakes; (ii) programmes collecting routine data on commercial or recreational fisheries can be designed and analysed so as to isolate confounding effects due to fishery-specific factors and, hence, used to detect and monitor environmental change on large scales; (iii) the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) can be modified to suit Australian conditions and fish communities to meet the important need for a predictive model of aquatic environmental quality. The IBI is a quantitative biological tool with a strong ecological foundation that integrates attributes from several levels of ecosystem organization. Examples of the use of IBI elsewhere suggest its robustness, flexibility and sensitivity can cope effectively with the low diversity of the Australian fish fauna and the dominance of ecological generalists. A provisional structure is suggested for a test of the IBI in four riverine regions of New South Wales.

Predicting assemblages and species richness of endemic fish in the upper Yangtze River

“…Fish assemblages are more effective in integrating the biological response to ecological processes than other biotic components, and are therefore one of the most sensitive and reliable indicators of the ecological status of streams and rivers (Fausch et al, 1990;Harris, 1995;Lek et al, 2005;Park et al, 2006). The upstream-downstream gradient is probably the most well-known large-scale pattern in stream fish assemblages, and correspondingly the flow regime, temperature, food availability and substrate conditions of the river also vary from upstream to downstream areas (Rahel and Hubert, 1991;Belliard et al, 1997;Marchetti and Moyle, 2001;Grubbs et al, 2007).…”

Influences of environmental and chemical parameters on the spatial growth patterns of four riverine cyprinid fishes

“…Given that fish growth rates have been used widely to assess the influences of anthropogenic activities on aquatic environments (e.g. Harris, 1995;Welcomme et al, 2006), then these data assist assessment of how environmental changes might alter the growth rates of cyprinid fishes against a backdrop of influences of vairables such as temperature (latitude). Indeed, providing that toxicity thresholds are not exceeded then our outputs suggest that the expression of some aspects of the life history traits of these species, such as somatic growth rates, will shift and, potentially, accelerate.…”

Effects of natural and anthropogenic environmental changes on riverine fish assemblages: a framework for ecological assessment of rivers

“…Since its introduction, the IBI has been modified for use in other regions and types of ecosystems throughout North America (Karr and Chu, 1999). It has also been modified for use outside North America (Hughes and Oberdorff, 1999) (Hugueny et al, 1996 in Guinea, Hocutt et al, 1994 on the Namibia-Angola border, Hay et al, 1996 in Namibia, Kamdem-Toham and Teugels, 1999 in Gabon), Asia (Ganasan and Hughes, 1998 in India), Australia (Harris, 1995), Central America (Lyons et al, 1995 in Mexico) and South America (Gutierrez, 1994 in Venezuela;Araújo, 1998 in Brazil;Tejerina-Garro, 2001 in French Guiana). In South America, the index adaptations made by Gutierrez (1994) and Araújo (1998) have conserved the same metrics as used in temperate regions.…”