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Larva fish assemblage structure in three-dimensional floating wetlands and non-floating wetlands in the Changjiang River estuary

  • Aquaculture and Fisheries
  • Published:
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Abstract

Fish populations have declined in many estuarine and freshwater ecosystems in part due to the loss of habitat in recent decades. Reconstructing lost habitat for larvae fish is a potential method for recovering larvae fish populations. Three-dimensional artificial floating wetlands (AFWs) on which Phragmites australis was planted were experimentally deployed to recover the lost habitat in the Changjiang (Yangtze) River estuary from May to July 2018. The AFW area was characterized by slow velocity, high transparency, low dissolved oxygen, and relatively constant water temperature. The total individuals of larvae fish in the AFW area (12 122 in total) was higher than that in the non-AFW area (1 250 in total), and the densities of most larvae fish species were higher in the AFW habitat than in the non-AFW area. The distributions of larvae fish species were positively influenced by habitat type because they were strongly related to the negative part of the first axis of the redundancy analysis, and Cyprinus carpio and Cyprinus auratus were inclined to habitat in the slow velocity and high transparency AFW habitat area. These results indicate that larvae fish species are inclined to inhabit the AFW habitat. The use of three-dimensional P. australis AFWs would be a potential method for enhancing the habitat of larvae fish in the degraded habitats along the estuary.

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Data Availability Statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article.

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Acknowledgment

We thank the Engineering Research Center of Ecology and Agricultural Use of Wetlands, Ministry of Education for help in the field work, the laboratory workers from the key laboratory of Fisheries Ecology of the Yangtze Estuary, CAFS, and the East China Sea Fisheries Research of Agriculture and Wildlife Service for assistance. Finally, we are also grateful for the comments from anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434025, China

    Xiaofeng Huang, Yi Chai & Qian Wang

  2. Engineering Research Center of Ecology and Agricultural Use of Wetland, Ministry of Education, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434020, China

    Xiaofeng Huang

  3. Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Shanghai, 200090, China

    Feng Zhao, Chao Song & Ping Zhuang

Authors
  1. Xiaofeng Huang
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  2. Feng Zhao
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  3. Chao Song
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  4. Yi Chai
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  5. Qian Wang
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  6. Ping Zhuang
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Contributions

Conceived and designed the investigation: HXF, ZP. Performed field and/or laboratory work: SC, CY. Analyzed the data: HXF, ZF. Contributed materials, reagents, and/or analysis tools: WQ, ZF.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiaofeng Huang or Ping Zhuang.

Additional information

Supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M632887) and the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFD0900905)

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Huang, X., Zhao, F., Song, C. et al. Larva fish assemblage structure in three-dimensional floating wetlands and non-floating wetlands in the Changjiang River estuary. J. Ocean. Limnol. 39, 721–731 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0078-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0078-6

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