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A “pulse-stairstep” longitudinal pattern of larval fish assemblages in a channelized floodplain river downstream of a dam: dominant influences of major tributaries with a “confluence refuge concept”

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Abstract

We investigated larval fish assemblages in the Yangtze River downstream of the Three Gorges Dam to test the influence of tributary inputs on the longitudinal recovery pattern of the assemblages from negative impacts of dam regulation. Larval fish assemblages showed a “pulse-stairstep” longitudinal pattern. Specifically, two “pulses” of dramatically increased abundance of larval fish occurred immediately downstream of the confluences of Dongting Lake and Hanjiang River. Three “stairsteps” of larval fish abundance were observed, which were separated by the confluences of Hanjiang River and the Poyang Lake watershed inputs. Larval fish abundance kept relatively constant within a stairstep and increased apparently in the downstream direction among the stairsteps. While fish assemblages upstream of the confluence of Hanjiang River were highly variable, whereas those downstream were relatively similar. Our results demonstrated that tributary inputs shaped the longitudinal recovery pattern of the larval fish assemblages. We proposed the “confluence refuge concept” suggesting that confluence areas provide refuges and nursery grounds for fishes in the suboptimal river section negatively impacted by the dam. Hence, conserving the confluence areas of major tributaries and maintaining lateral connectivity of floodplain lakes are critical for fishery resource enhancement in such dam-regulated and highly channelized floodplain rivers.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFD1200305); Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA23040402); National Natural Science Foundation of China (31870398, 31570420).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Juan Cao, Fei Cheng & Zhen Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Juan Cao & Zhen Wang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, Hainan, China

    Yiqing Song & Songguang Xie

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  1. Juan Cao
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Contributions

JC, FC, and SX conceived the ideas and designed the methodology; JC and ZW performed the investigation; JC, ZW, and YS analyzed the data; JC, FC, YS, and SX led the writing of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the revisions and approved the final draft for publication.

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Correspondence to Fei Cheng.

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Cao, J., Cheng, F., Wang, Z. et al. A “pulse-stairstep” longitudinal pattern of larval fish assemblages in a channelized floodplain river downstream of a dam: dominant influences of major tributaries with a “confluence refuge concept”. Hydrobiologia 850, 3981–3995 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05281-9

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