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Fish telemetry in African inland waters and its use in management: a review

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Abstract

Fish telemetry is a widely established technique in developed countries. However, in underdeveloped regions, its use is generally lacking. We briefly present common fish telemetry methods used globally and then reviewed their use in African inland freshwater ecosystems. We highlight telemetry studies' progress in African inland waters and evaluate its potential applications in various fields. These include the management of water resources, ecosystem response to changes, fish movement, river connectivity, conservation of species, management of fisheries, fish passages efficiency and monitoring freshwater ecosystems in Africa. We found 53 studies that used fish telemetry in inland African waters across eight countries. Radio telemetry (81%) was favoured over acoustic telemetry (11%), while the remaining studies included reviews and procedural tagging studies. Telemetry was used on 25 native fish species and two non-native species in Africa across various families and included two African native fishes studied in European laboratories. In Africa, the two most studied genera were Hydrocynus spp. (n = 19) and the Labeobarbus spp. (n = 19). Compared with developed countries, the paucity of African freshwater telemetry studies is of concern, especially as fish movement is important for water resource management decisions across Africa. Finally, we highlight the benefits derived from telemetry studies as outweighing the costs and can continue to provide evidence-based data to manage Africa’s water resources.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the University of KwaZulu-Natal (ZA), especially the Centre for Functional Biodiversity, Aquatic Ecosystem Research Group, and the Centre for Water Resource and Research for their support.

Funding

We thank the University of KwaZulu-Natal (ZA), the University of Mpumalanga (ZA), the National Research Foundation (NRF) (ZA, Grant 98404), the NRF BRICS Multilateral Joint Science and Technology Research Collaboration study titled, ‘Global and local water quality monitoring by multimodal sensor systems’, the NRF Community of Practice Grant, the Water Research Commission (ZA), the Durban Research Action Partnership (ZA) and Umgeni Water (ZA) for funding us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Functional Biodiversity, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, P/Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, 3209, South Africa

    Matthew J. Burnett, Gordon C. O’Brien, Francois J. Jacobs & Colleen T. Downs

  2. Centre for Water Resource Research, University of KwaZulu-Natal, P/Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, 3209, South Africa

    Matthew J. Burnett & Graham Jewitt

  3. School of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Mpumalanga, Nelspruit, 1200, South Africa

    Gordon C. O’Brien

  4. Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Kamutjonga Inland Fisheries Institute, Private Bag 5147, Divundu, Namibia

    Francois J. Jacobs

  5. IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, 2611, Delft, South Holland, The Netherlands

    Graham Jewitt

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  1. Matthew J. Burnett
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Contributions

MJB conceived paper with input from GOB, FJJ, GJ and CTD. GOB and CTD sought funding. MJB collected and analysed data and wrote the paper. CTD, GJ, GCOB and FJJ contributed valuable comments to the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Colleen T. Downs.

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Burnett, M.J., O’Brien, G.C., Jacobs, F.J. et al. Fish telemetry in African inland waters and its use in management: a review. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 31, 337–357 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-021-09650-2

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