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Fishes
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Advances in Anguillid Eel Biology and Ecology
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Advances in Anguillid Eel Biology and Ecology

A special issue of Fishes (ISSN 2410-3888).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 January 2023) | Viewed by 6589

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Wann-Nian Tzeng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Interests: fish otolith; climate change; fisheries oceanography; eel biology and ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The anguillid eel is an economically important aquaculture species. The populations of the three temperate eel species (American. European, and Japanese eel) in the North hemisphere have dramatically decreased since 1970. The reason behind these decreases is not clear but might be a combination of climate change, overfishing, habitat degradation, parasite infection, etc. The eel is a mysterious animal with a complicated catadromous life history, spawning in the deep ocean and growing in continental freshwaters. Despite much scientific study, their interesting life history is still incompletely understood. Recently, due to the introduction of new research tools, such as DNA, otolith daily growth increment, carbon and oxygen stable isotopes, EPMA and ICPMS for otolith microchemistry analyses, satellite pop-up archival tags for tracing the spawning migration and mathematic simulation modeling for tracing larval dispersal, etc., the study on biology and ecology of the anguillid eel have been progressed significantly. A study of their biology and ecology is necessary to understand the reasons for the population decline and enable their conservation. This Special Issue on anguillid eels will serve as a platform to share new findings in eel biology, focusing on the sustainable use of anguillid eel resources, life history, population dynamics, conservation and fisheries management, habitat use, and the effect of climate change on marine and continental eel life history.

Prof. Dr. Wann-Nian Tzeng
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fishes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • evolution and population genetics
  • eDNA
  • carbon and oxygen stable isotopes
  • feeding habit
  • migratory temperature history
  • otolith daily growth increment
  • age and growth
  • otolith microchemistry
  • migratory environmental history
  • larval dispersal
  • spawning migration
  • habitat use
  • climate change
  • overfishing
  • conservation and fisheries management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2359 KiB  
Article
Space and Time Use of European Eel Restocked in Upland Continental Freshwaters, a Long-Term Telemetry Study
by Billy Nzau Matondo, Léa Backory, Guillaume Dupuy, Gildas Amoussou, Ali Abdou Oumarou, Justine Gelder, Séverine Renardy, Jean-Philippe Benitez, Arnaud Dierckx, Frédéric Dumonceau, Xavier Rollin and Michaël Ovidio
Fishes 2023, 8(3), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8030137 - 27 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2263
Abstract
There is a lack of information on many biological and ecological aspects of the critically endangered European eel during its growth phase in inland waters, such as when the sedentary life stage begins, mobility according to age and response to habitat alteration. We [...] Read more.
There is a lack of information on many biological and ecological aspects of the critically endangered European eel during its growth phase in inland waters, such as when the sedentary life stage begins, mobility according to age and response to habitat alteration. We used mobile radio frequency identification (RFID) telemetry technology to track tagged eels over 6 years after their restocking as glass eels in six typologically different rivers. We also cross-referenced telemetry data with those of several electrofishing monitoring sessions to better understand the mobility and behaviour of eels. The relative abundance (maximum 52 individuals km−1) and detection rate (maximum 28%) of eels were not significantly correlated with the time/age after restocking. Eels were present in all restocked rivers, but their abundance was low and mobility was high in a slightly acidified, oligotrophic river that had experienced a great loss of fish habitat heterogeneity. This loss of habitat heterogeneity was due to flooding events and machinery works in riverbeds to restore the altered riverbanks. Four years after glass eel release, restocked eels became sedentary and moved from shallow to deep microhabitats with riverbeds dominated by blocks as the bottom substrate. After this age, they exhibited high fidelity to the residence site. This study provides new insights concerning the biology and ecology of eels restocked as glass eels in freshwaters, which should lead to improved management plans for the species through the implementation of more effective conservation measures and strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Anguillid Eel Biology and Ecology)
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18 pages, 2239 KiB  
Article
Anthropogenic Contaminants Shape the Fitness of the Endangered European Eel: A Machine Learning Approach
by Bastien Bourillon, Eric Feunteun, Anthony Acou, Thomas Trancart, Nils Teichert, Claude Belpaire, Sylvie Dufour, Paco Bustamante, Kim Aarestrup, Alan Walker and David Righton
Fishes 2022, 7(5), 274; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes7050274 - 5 Oct 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3548
Abstract
European eel is thought to be a symbol of the effects of global change on aquatic biodiversity. The species has persisted for millions of years and faced drastic environmental fluctuations thanks to its phenotypic plasticity. However, the species has recently declined to historically [...] Read more.
European eel is thought to be a symbol of the effects of global change on aquatic biodiversity. The species has persisted for millions of years and faced drastic environmental fluctuations thanks to its phenotypic plasticity. However, the species has recently declined to historically low levels under synergistic human pressures. Sublethal chemical contamination has been shown to alter reproductive capacity, but the impacts and required actions are not fully addressed by conservation plans. This paper proposes a modelling approach to quantify the effects of sublethal contamination by anthropogenic pollutants on the expression of life history traits and related fitness of the critically endangered European eel. Material and Methods: We sampled female silver eels from eight different catchments across Europe previously shown to be representative of the spectrum of environmental variability and contamination. We measured 11 fitness-related life history traits within four main categories: fecundity, adaptability and plasticity, migratory readiness, and spawning potential. We used machine learning in models to explore the phenotypic reaction (expression of these life history traits) according to geographical parameters, parasite burdens (the introduced nematode Anguillicoloides crassus) and anthropogenic contaminants (persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in muscular tissue and trace elements (TEs) in gonads, livers and muscles). Finally, we simulated, the effects of two management scenarios—contamination reduction and contamination increase—on the fecundity and recruitment. Results: Contamination in our sampling was shown to have a stronger control on life history traits than do geographic and environmental factors that are currently described in the literature. We modelled different contamination scenarios to assess the benefit of mitigation: these scenarios suggest that reducing pollutants concentrations to the lowest values that occurred in our sampling design would double the fecundity of eels compared to the current situation. Discussion: Remediation of contamination could represent a viable management option for increasing the resilience of eel populations, with much more effects than solely reducing fishing mortality. More broadly, our work provides an innovative way for quantitative assessment of the reaction norms of species’ biological traits and related fecundity to contamination by organic and inorganic pollutions thus opening new management and conservation pathways to revert the erosion of biodiversity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Anguillid Eel Biology and Ecology)
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