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Variation in fish community structure, richness, and diversity in 56 Danish lakes with contrasting depth, size, and trophic state: does the method matter?

  • SHALLOW LAKE ECOSYSTEMS
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Abstract

The distribution of freshwater fish is influenced by food availability, habitat heterogeneity, competition, predation, trophic state, and presence/absence of macrophytes. This poses a challenge to monitoring, and researchers have been struggling to develop accurate sampling methods for obtaining a better understanding of fish communities. We compare fish community composition, richness, and diversity in 56 Danish lakes using data obtained by gillnetting in different lake zones and near-shore electrofishing, respectively. On average, electrofishing captured more species than offshore gillnets, but not more than littoral gillnets. Overall, the different fish sampling methods showed consistency as to fish community structure, but noticeable differences in community–environment relationships. Lake area was the best predictor for fish species richness in the littoral samplings, while it was poor for offshore samplings. Electrofishing was more efficient than gillnets at catching pike (Esox lucius), eel (Anguilla anguilla), and tench (Tinca tinca), whereas pelagic gillnets were better for catching pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) and perch (Perca fluviatilis). Independently of methods, the total number per unit of effort and weight per unit of effort were generally positively related to summer chlorophyll a, and, for offshore nets, negatively related to average depth. Our results show that sampling restricted to specific habitats within the lakes does not provide a representative of the whole-lake fish community, as all methods miss some important species that other methods capture. However, electrofishing seems to be a fast alternative to gillnets for monitoring fish species richness and composition in littoral habitats of Danish lakes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Anne Mette Poulsen for manuscript assistance and three anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments and suggestions to improve our manuscript. Funding was given by WISER (Water bodies in Europe: Integrative Systems to assess Ecological status and Recovery), European Union under the 7th Framework Program, Theme 6 (Environment including Climate Change, contract No. 226273), the EU-FP7 project REFRESH, CRES and CLEAR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, P.O. Box 314, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Rosemberg Fernandes Menezes, Martin Søndergaard, Torben L. Lauridsen, Frank Landkildehus & Erik Jeppesen

  2. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 116, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark

    Rosemberg Fernandes Menezes, Finn Borchsenius & Jens-Christian Svenning

  3. Greenland Climate Research Centre, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Nuuk, Greenland

    Erik Jeppesen

  4. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research (SDC), Beijing, China

    Torben L. Lauridsen & Erik Jeppesen

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  1. Rosemberg Fernandes Menezes
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  2. Finn Borchsenius
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Correspondence to Rosemberg Fernandes Menezes.

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Guest editors: Zhengwen Liu, Bo-Ping Han & Ramesh D. Gulati / Conservation, management and restoration of shallow lake ecosystems facing multiple stressors

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Menezes, R.F., Borchsenius, F., Svenning, JC. et al. Variation in fish community structure, richness, and diversity in 56 Danish lakes with contrasting depth, size, and trophic state: does the method matter?. Hydrobiologia 710, 47–59 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-012-1025-0

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