Abstract
Studies on fish eggs and larvae are important for understanding the recruitment dynamics of fish assemblages and their relationships with environmental conditions. Located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, China, the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) is one of the largest reservoirs in the world, where the fish resource ecology has drawn great attention. With the purpose of evaluating fish recruitment in the TGR, in the present study, samples of fish eggs and larvae were collected at Luoqi County, the upper end of the TGR, from April 15th to July 29th 2011. From the samples collected, we identified 46 fish species belonging to nine families and five orders. The most abundant species were in the Cultrinae, Gobiidae, and Gobioninae. An estimated 12.4 billion fish eggs and larvae drifted into the TGR. There were approximately 2.6 billion Pseudolaubuca sinensis, 1.9 billion Hemiculter leucisculus, and 1.8 billion Gobiidae. The spawning grounds of fishes that release pelagic eggs are in the reaches 13–162 km upstream from our sampling site. More attention should be paid to protecting the habitat in large free stretches upstream of the reservoir, since these areas are important spawning grounds for many fishes. Also, an ample natural flooding regime should be retained in this region.
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Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the China Three Gorges Corporation (0799522 and CT-12-08-01) and the Three Gorges Project Eco-environmental Monitoring system (JJ [2013]-010). We thank Z.H. Duan for help with ichthyoplankton identification, and Z.G. Miao and S. Luo for assistance with outdoor sampling. We also thank F. Liu, T. Wang, and M.R. Wang for the suggestions on statistical analysis, and J. Smith, H.A.C. Chintha Perera, and X. Zhang for improving the English text.
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Mu, H., Li, M., Liu, H. et al. Analysis of fish eggs and larvae flowing into the Three Gorges Reservoir on the Yangtze River, China. Fish Sci 80, 505–515 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-014-0729-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-014-0729-7