Spawning strategies in cypriniform fishes in a lowland river invaded by non-indigenous European barbel Barbus barbus
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PRIMARY RESEARCH PAPER
Spawning strategies in cypriniform fishes in a lowland river invaded by non-indigenous European barbel Barbus barbus Catherine Gutmann Roberts
. J. Robert Britton
Received: 15 May 2020 / Revised: 11 August 2020 / Accepted: 23 August 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Spawning strategies of lowland river fishes include single spawning, where reproduction generally occurs in early spring to provide 0? fish with an extended growth season through the summer, but with a high risk of stochastic mortality events occurring, such as early summer floods. This risk can be reduced by multiple or protracted spawning strategies, where 0? fish are produced over an extended period, often into mid-summer, but with the trade-off being a shorter growth season. The spawning strategies of cypriniform fish were explored in the River Teme, a spate river in Western England, which has non-indigenous European barbel Barbus barbus present. Sampling 0? fish in spring and summer and across three spawning periods, B. barbus, chub Squalius cephalus and minnow Phoxinus phoxinus always revealed multiple spawning events, with 0? fish of \ 20 mm present in samples collected from June to August. Fish below 20 mm in August
Handling editor: Pauliina Louhi
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04394-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. C. Gutmann Roberts (&) J. R. Britton Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Institute of Aquatic Sciences, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, UK e-mail: [email protected]
remained relatively small by the end of their growth season (October). For dace Leuciscus leuciscus, only single spawning events were evident, but with 0? dace always being relatively large. Therefore, multiple spawning appears to be a common strategy that provides resilience in 0? fish against stochastic mortality events in lowland rivers. Keywords Spawning strategies Invasion biology Recruitment Cypriniform Barbus
Introduction In temperate lowland rivers, larval and juvenile fish in their first year of life (‘0?’) may face episodic flood events that can be deleterious to their cohorts, especially in early summer when individuals are still in early developmental stages (Nunn et al., 2002, 2007a, b). Early developmental stages have not yet developed all fins and muscle structures to withstand flow, and in channelised rivers, seeking slackwaters may not be possible (Bolland et al. 2015). The probability of over-winter survival and recruitment of 0? fishes can also be positively correlated to their body lengths at the end of their first growth season (Kirjasniemi & Valtonen, 1997; Mills & Mann, 1985; Nunn et al., 2003).
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Hydrobiologia
Spawning strategies of temperate riverine cypriniform fishes vary by species (Vila-Gispert, 2002), but where each strategy is assumed to maximise the surviv
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