Assessing fish distribution and threats to fish biodiversity in the Yangtze River Basin, China

摘要

The Yangtze River (6,380 km long) is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest one in the world. Its river basin (a complex riverine–lacustrine network) is especially rich in fish fauna, representing high species richness and endemism, and therefore is a globally significant area for preserving fish biodiversity (Dudgeon 2000; Park et al. 2003). However, during the past several decades, loss of fish biodiversity in the Yangtze River Basin has been accelerated by a series of direct and indirect effects of human activities and environmental changes, e.g., disappearance, shrinkage, and fragmentation of habitats for fish spawning, feeding and migration, overfishing, water pollution, and invasion of exotic species (Zeng 1990; Xie and Chen 1999). Despite numerous publications on ichthyological research in the Yangtze River Basin since the 1950s, synthesis and analysis or assessment of fish distribution patterns and quantification of major threats to fishes are still limited, which in.