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Fish species occurrence, estimates and human activities on the islands of the Congo River, Central Africa

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Abstract

Human induced habitat destruction and modifications cause losses of aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. The Congo and its islands constitute special ecosystems and have been used by humans for many purposes over centuries. However, little is known about the effects of these human activities on the fish species richness and distribution. This study is a preliminary assessment of island habitat types, fish species richness and effects of human activities on fish distribution. Islands were randomly selected to describe island habitats, to collect fish specimens using nets and to record human activities, including agriculture. Terra firma island habitats were mostly mixed mature forest with clay and muddy substrates. We captured 29 fish morphotypes (13 families). Clariidae and Cyprinidae were widely distributed whereas Alestidae, Chanidae, Malapteridae and Polypteridae were restricted in their distribution. Humans permanently settled 76 % of the islands and 70 % were cultivated. Permanent human settlements and agriculture were related to erosion on ~50 % of islands. For reasons that are difficult to explain at this stage, fish morphotype richness decreased with increasing field sizes, warranting further investigations.

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Acknowledgements

Data were collected through the USAID/CARPE Funding to the World Wide Fund for Nature. However, views expressed in this paper do not reflect those of the US Government. We thank the DRC Government for authorizing us to work in the Lac Tumba Landscape. The writing up of this paper was part of the Post Doctoral Research on identifying human influence in waters of the Lake Tumba landscape, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala granted to Bila-Isia Inogwabini. Comments received from eight anonymous reviewers helped improve the quality of the paper. Our research was conducted with the approval of the Ministry of Environment and Nature Conservation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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  1. Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Uppsala, Sweden

    Bila-Isia Inogwabini

  2. WWF DRC Program, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo

    Zanga Lingopa

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  1. Bila-Isia Inogwabini
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Correspondence to Bila-Isia Inogwabini.

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Inogwabini, BI., Lingopa, Z. Fish species occurrence, estimates and human activities on the islands of the Congo River, Central Africa. Environ Biol Fish 96, 1289–1299 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-013-0136-4

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