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Diversity, pattern and ecological drivers of freshwater fish in China and adjacent areas

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Abstract

China is one of the megadiverse freshwater regions in the world, but the detailed diversity inventory, distribution pattern and ecological drivers are incompletely known, which hinders large-scale freshwater diversity conservation and pattern analysis at the global scale. Aiming to fill this knowledge gap, we compiled a comprehensive richness and distribution database of freshwater fishes in China and adject areas based on our long-term survey and exhaustive data collection from 165 hydrologic units at tributary and sub-basin grain. Then, we elucidated a biogeographical pattern using a β dissimilarity matrix with species presence/absence data and taxonomic relationships. Finally, we evaluated the explanatory power of three hypotheses, i.e., ‘area’, ‘energy’, and ‘history’, in explaining the diversity patterns. A total of 2,063 species utilizing freshwater habitats were identified in the study area. Among them, 1,651 freshwater species were recorded in China, of which 1034 species are endemic to China. Four major freshwater zoogeographic regions, the Palearctic, High Central Asia, East Asia, and South Asia, were identified from a dendrogram, and each region was characterized by different taxonomic categories (i.e., from species to order). ‘Historical’ factors play the most important role (43.64–62.96% of the total variation), or at least a comparable role to that of contemporary climate, in explaining the freshwater fish diversity patterns (species richness and species endemicity). In conclusion, the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, nearby orogeny, and the following formation of the East Asian monsoon climate had profound impacts on the diversification and distribution of ichthyofauna in China and adjacent areas.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in supplementary materials.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Yangyang Liang and Ren Zhu for their assistance during field sampling. We are thankful to Dr. Wen Xiong, Jie Zhao and Chunhua Li for data collection.

Funding

This project was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB31040101), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition Program (2019QZKK05010102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572248), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20050204).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Dekui He, Xiaoyun Sui, Heying Sun, Yifeng Chen & Yiyu Chen

  2. Institute of International Rivers and Eco-Security, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650091, Yunnan, China

    Juan Tao & Chengzhi Ding

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  1. Dekui He
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  2. Xiaoyun Sui
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  3. Heying Sun
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  4. Juan Tao
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  5. Chengzhi Ding
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  6. Yifeng Chen
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  7. Yiyu Chen
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Contributions

YC, DH and XS conceived the ideas; DH, HS and XS compiled and reviewed the database; DH and HS analyzed the data. DH, HS, JT and CD led the writing.

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Correspondence to Dekui He.

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He, D., Sui, X., Sun, H. et al. Diversity, pattern and ecological drivers of freshwater fish in China and adjacent areas. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 30, 387–404 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-020-09600-4

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