Openness of Fish Habitat Matters: Lake Pelagic Fish Community Starts Very Close to the Shore

Fish communities differ significantly between the littoral and the pelagic habitats. This paper attempts to define the shift in communities between the two habitats based on the European standard gillnet catch. We sampled the benthic and pelagic habitats from shore to shore in Lake Most and Římov Reservoir (Czech Republic). The 3 m deep pelagic nets were spanned across the water body at equal distances from two boundary points, where the depth was 3.5 m. The benthic community contained more fish, more species, and smaller individuals. The mild sloped littoral with a soft bottom attracted more fish than the sloping bank with a hard bottom and less benthos and large Daphnia. The catch of the pelagic nets was dominated by eurytopic fish—rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) and roach (Rutilus rutilus) in Most and bleak (Alburnus alburnus) in Římov. With the exception of one case where overgrown macrophytes extended the structured habitat, the largest shift from the benthic to the pelagic community was observed only in the first pelagic gillnet above the bottom depth of 3.5 m. Open water catches were relatively constant with small signs of decline towards the middle of the lake. The results indicate that the benthic gillnet catch is representative of a very limited area and volume, while most of the volume is dominated by the pelagic community. This has important consequences for the assessment of the community parameters of the whole lake following the European standards for gillnet sampling design. View Full-Text

Keywords: habitat use; spatial distribution; ecotone; open water Scardinius; Rutilus; Alburnus; Perca

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MDPI and ACS Style

Moraes, K.; Souza, A.T.; Vašek, M.; Bartoň, D.; Blabolil, P.; Čech, M.; Santos, R.A.d.; Draštík, V.; Holubová, M.; Jůza, T.; Kočvara, L.; Kolářová, K.; Matěna, J.; Peterka, J.; Říha, M.; Sajdlová, Z.; Šmejkal, M.; Tsering, L.; Kubečka, J. Openness of Fish Habitat Matters: Lake Pelagic Fish Community Starts Very Close to the Shore. Water 2021, 13, 3291. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13223291

AMA Style

Moraes K, Souza AT, Vašek M, Bartoň D, Blabolil P, Čech M, Santos RAd, Draštík V, Holubová M, Jůza T, Kočvara L, Kolářová K, Matěna J, Peterka J, Říha M, Sajdlová Z, Šmejkal M, Tsering L, Kubečka J. Openness of Fish Habitat Matters: Lake Pelagic Fish Community Starts Very Close to the Shore. Water. 2021; 13(22):3291. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13223291

Chicago/Turabian Style

Moraes, Karlos, Allan T. Souza, Mojmír Vašek, Daniel Bartoň, Petr Blabolil, Martin Čech, Romulo A.d. Santos, Vladislav Draštík, Michaela Holubová, Tomáš Jůza, Luboš Kočvara, Kateřina Kolářová, Josef Matěna, Jiří Peterka, Milan Říha, Zuzana Sajdlová, Marek Šmejkal, Lobsang Tsering, and Jan Kubečka. 2021. "Openness of Fish Habitat Matters: Lake Pelagic Fish Community Starts Very Close to the Shore" Water 13, no. 22: 3291. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13223291

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Openness of Fish Habitat Matters: Lake Pelagic Fish Community Starts Very Close to the Shore

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