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Multiscale effects on freshwater fish distribution in a highly disturbed Mediterranean-type basin: community-level and species-level responses

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Abstract

Fish–habitat relationships are a key element for conservation and management strategies, especially in highly disturbed areas where fish communities are subjected to many human pressures. In this regard, multiscale studies help to improve the knowledge of the spatial components and identify local (e.g. water width) and regional (e.g. elevation) key variables in species distribution. We examined local and regional requirements to study freshwater fish assemblage and occurrence at 216 locations in a highly disturbed basin, the Guadalquivir River Basin (S Spain). Fifteen environmental variables were considered at local scale and twenty at regional level. A total of eighteen species were captured during field sampling. The global prevalence for introduced species was 25%, which can be considered a high value. The most extended introduced species were eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) and pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus), with around 10% prevalence. Regional and local scales showed different relevance according to the level-study approach (community or species). At the community level, the local, regional and shared components revealed similar influence on the fish assemblage, while at individual species level the local component was the main factor to explain most of fish occurrences. Moreover, variables’ interaction was scarcely selected and almost no introduced species distribution was affected by the interaction of any variable. Our results highlight the poor conservation status of the native fish fauna of the Guadalquivir River Basin as well as the importance of analyzing fish–habitat relationships at different scales and approach. These results provide useful information to assess and design conservation strategies in Mediterranean-type basin.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Junta de Andalucía, Convocatoria de Proyectos de Excelencia (P07-RNM-03309), and was carried out at the Centro Internacional de Estudios y Convenciones Ecológicas y Medioambientales (CIECEM) of the University of Huelva. We wish to thank everyone from the CIECEM for their invaluable help and logistic support. We are grateful to Dr. Tano Gutiérrez Cánovas and another anonymous reviewer for the very helpful comments and suggestions that improved an early version of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Integrative Sciences, University of Huelva, Campus Universitario El Carmen. Avda. Andalucía s/n, 21071, Huelva, Spain

    P. Sáez-Gómez, A. Ramos-Merchante & J. Prenda

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The conception and design of the study was carried out by Pedro Sáez-Gómez under the direction of José Prenda and the contributions from Adrián Ramos-Merchante. José Prenda, Adrián Ramos and Pedro Sáez-Gómez processed the data. Adrián Ramos-Merchante performed the statistical analyses with the input from Pedro Sáez-Gómez and José Prenda. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Pedro Sáez-Gómez, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript and gave their final approval for publication.

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Correspondence to J. Prenda.

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The authors declare that all procedures have been approved by the Andalusian Authority for Wildlife Protection. This study was carried out in accordance with national and international guidelines for care and use of animals.

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Sáez-Gómez, P., Ramos-Merchante, A. & Prenda, J. Multiscale effects on freshwater fish distribution in a highly disturbed Mediterranean-type basin: community-level and species-level responses. Aquat Ecol 54, 869–887 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-020-09783-9

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