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Predatory fish species as indicators of biodiversity: their distribution in environmental gradients in small and mid-sized rivers in Eastern Europe

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Abstract

We studied predatory fish species in relation to the biodiversity of fish assemblages and environmental variables at 511 sites in small and mid-sized rivers at the eastern edge of the European continent. The studied region has a high geographical and environmental heterogeneity. The impact of environmental factors on species occurrence was analyzed with generalized linear models. The main influential environmental factors on the occurrence of predatory fish species were elevation and the width and depth of the river. For the first time for a large area of Eastern Europe, optimum points and niche breadths for predatory fish species along width, depth, and velocity gradients were estimated. The width of the ecological niche can vary significantly both between different species of fish and within the same species for certain factors. Our results identify the bioindicative potential of predatory fish species in river ecosystems in this, sometimes overlooked, the eastern part of the continent. We found that the probabilities of occurrence of pike, burbot, pikeperch, and asp were close to zero when the Shannon index was less than 1 and the number of fish species was less than 5. The probability of occurrences of perch was 100% if the number of fish species in the site was more than 15.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Tim Sparks for revising the English of the early drafts of the manuscript. We also thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomonitoring Laboratory, Institute of Problems in Ecology and Mineral Wealth, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Tatarstan Republic, Daurskaya str., 28, Kazan, 420087, Russia

    Arthur Askeyev, Oleg Askeyev, Igor Askeyev & Sergey Monakhov

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  1. Arthur Askeyev
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  2. Oleg Askeyev
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  3. Igor Askeyev
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  4. Sergey Monakhov
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Contributions

AA participated in all the data collection and wrote the methods, results, and discussion. OA led the data collection, designed and developed the manuscript structure, and wrote the introduction, methods, results, and discussion. IA participated in all fieldwork, manuscript structure, and language edits and contributed to results and discussion. SM participated in all data collection, created the figures, and contributed to results. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Oleg Askeyev.

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We declare that the fish were caught and preserved under a survey permit of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries. After fieldwork, ≥ 90% of fish were returned to the water. This article does not contain any studies with human participants.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Askeyev, A., Askeyev, O., Askeyev, I. et al. Predatory fish species as indicators of biodiversity: their distribution in environmental gradients in small and mid-sized rivers in Eastern Europe. Environ Biol Fish 104, 767–778 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-021-01113-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-021-01113-8

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