Larval fish sensitivity to a simulated cold-water pulse varies between species and age

Accepted: 27 June 2022
Supplementary: 166
HTML: 135
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
The release of cold-water from hypolimnetic zones of impoundments sharply reduces downstream riverine water temperature. This cold-water pollution (CWP) can extend for hundreds of kilometres, severely challenging the physiological ability of aquatic fauna, particularly ectotherms such as fish, to maintain essential processes such as metabolism, development and growth and survival. The impact of CWP on native fish, especially early life stages, is poorly known. We investigated the effect of a 24-hour exposure to a range of environmentally-related water temperatures (8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20°C) on three age-classes (<24-hour-old, 7-day and 14-day-old larvae) of two Australian native fish species: Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii) and Macquarie perch (Macquaria australasica). Overall, larvae of M. peelii were more sensitive to lower water temperatures and hence CWP than M. australasica, indicated by higher rates of equilibrium loss. Larvae of M. peelii were most sensitive to exposure at seven days old whereas M. australasica larvae were most sensitive at <24-h-old. Using our results, we modelled pre- and post-impoundment temperature scenarios and estimated the downstream CWP footprint for both species in an Australian river reach. Larvae of M. peelii were predicted to be absent from the first 26 km of river downstream of the impoundment compared with no impact on the distribution of M. australasica. Managing riverine water temperature below impoundments is fundamental to promoting positive outcomes for endemic fish on not only a local, but global basis. This study emphasises the differential impact of CWP among the critical early life stages and fish species and highlights the urgent need to better manage hypolimnetic water releases to improve downstream river ecosystems.
Edited by
Pietro Volta, CNR-IRSA Verbania, ItalyHow to Cite

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Similar Articles
- Wesley A. Saltarelli, Walter K. Dodds, Flavia Tromboni, Maria do Carmo Calijuri, Vinicius Neres-Lima, Carlos E. Jordão, Julio C.P. Palhares, Davi G.F. Cunha, Variation of stream metabolism along a tropical environmental gradient , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 77 No. 3 (2018)
- Anton WILLE, Bettina SONNTAG, Birgit SATTLER, Roland PSENNER, Abundance, biomass and size structure of the microbial assemblage in the high mountain lake Gossenköllesee (Tyrol, Austria) during the ice-free period , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 58 No. 2 (1999)
- Giampaolo Rossetti, Ilaria Mazzini, Giorgio Chiozzi, Luca Vecchioni, Federico Marrone, First report of non-marine ostracods (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from the Dahlak Archipelago (Eritrea), with the description of two new species , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 84 (2025)
- Flávio H. Ragonha, Alice M. Takeda, Does richness of Oligochaeta (Annelida) follows a linear distribution with habitat structural heterogeneity in aquatic sediments? , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 73 No. 1 (2014)
- Anna C.F. Aguiar, Vinicius Neres-Lima, Timothy P. Moulton, Relationships of shredders, leaf processing and organic matter along a canopy cover gradient in tropical streams , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 77 No. 1 (2018)
- Mohammed Kajee, Helen F. Dallas, Aneri Swanepoel, Charles L. Griffiths, Jeremy M. Shelton, The Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (FBIS) fish data: a georeferenced dataset of freshwater fishes occurring in South Africa , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 82 No. s1 (2023): Georeferenced freshwater biodiversity data
- Luciana Falci Theza Rodrigues, Felipe Silveira Leite, Roberto da Gama Alves, Influence of bryophyte biomass and organic matter quantity on the abundance and richness of oligochaetes in forest streams with different phytophysiognomies in southeastern Brazil , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 75 No. 2 (2016)
- Elzbieta Dumnicka, Kamil Najberek, Valeria Lencioni, Oligochaete distribution in alpine freshwaters: not a mere question of altitude , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 82 (2023)
- Rosario Mosello, An archive for the history of limnology in Verbania Pallanza (Northern Italy) , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 80 No. 3 (2021): Celebratory Issue - 80th Anniversary of the Journal of Limnology
- Agnes-Katharina Kreiling, Jón S. Ólafsson, Snæbjörn Pálsson, Bjarni K. Kristjánsson, Chironomidae fauna of springs in Iceland: Assessing the ecological relevance behind Tuxen’s spring classification , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 77 No. s1 (2018): Recent advances in the study of Chironomidae: An overview
<< < 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
-
John D. Koehn, Charles R. Todd, Henry Wootton, Michael JoyMarine and Freshwater Research : 2023