Using endemic freshwater fishes as proxies of their ecosystems to identify high priority rivers for conservation under climate change
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Climate change is a major threat to all levels of biodiversity from genes to ecosystems (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003, Root et al., 2003, Bellard et al., 2012, Urban, 2015). Freshwater ecosystems are among the most endangered ecosystems on Earth and are vulnerable to climate change (Sala et al., 2000, Jenkins, 2003, Dudgeon et al., 2006, Nel et al., 2009, Döll and Zhang, 2010). Despite freshwater ecosystems covering <0.1% of the Earth’s surface (Gleick, 1996) they support a very high biological diversity (around one third of global vertebrate diversity) and provide important ecosystem services (Helfman et al., 2009, Dawson, 2012, Dudgeon et al., 2006). Studies have shown that climate change already altered the phenology and distribution of freshwater species (Daufresne et al., 2004, Hassall et al., 2007). For instance, Daufresne et al (2004) showed that thermophilic fish and invertebrate species replaced northern, cold‐water species in response to climatic warming in the Upper Rhône River in France. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of potential impacts of climate change on freshwater ecosystems and their organisms (Harrod, 2015). Freshwater fishes are among the most diverse and threatened taxonomic groups (Dudgeon, 2011, Closs et al., 2015, Arthington et al., 2016, Comte and Olden, 2017). They are recognized as effective indicator for identifying the degree, direction and scale of changes in aquatic ecosystems (Izzo et al., 2016) and were used as indicator of freshwater quality and health (Oberdorff et al., 2001, Kennard et al., 2006). Thus fish can be used as an indicator to predict how freshwater ecosystems and organisms living in these ecosystems may be affected by future climatic changes (Oberdorff et al., 2001, Kennard et al., 2006, Izzo et al., 2016).
Species distribution models (SDMs) are frequently used in ecology (Elith and Leathwick, 2007), biogeography (Franklin, 2013), and conservation (Gama et al., 2017, Moradi et al., 2019). SDMs are very useful tools to predict how species will be effected by future climatic changes (Beaumont et al., 2008, Schwartz, 2012, Garcia et al., 2012). SDMs are increasingly being used in freshwater and marine ecosystems (Bond et al., 2011, Lambert et al., 2014, Kuemmerlen et al., 2014, Bouska et al., 2015, Rose et al., 2016, Gama et al., 2017, James et al., 2017, Barragán-Barrera et al., 2019). For example, Albouy et al. (2013) studied the impacts of climate change on 288 fish species in the Mediterranean Sea by employing SDMs; they found that suitable habitats for 54 species will be reduced under climate change.
Due to its high climatic and topographic diversity as well as locating at the crossroad of three biogeographical realms, Iran has a high species diversity. Freshwater fish with 264 species are among the most diverse and endemic species-rich group of vertebrates in the country (Jouladeh-Roudbar et al., 2015, Esmaeili et al., 2018a). Despite numerous studies on the natural history, taxonomy and phylogeny (see in Jouladeh-Roudbar et al., 2020, Esmaeili et al., 2018a for an overview) of freshwater species in Iran, there is not much known about the ecology and conservation status. Recent studies showed that climate change may be a major threat to fish biodiversity. For example, Esmaeili et al. (2018b) predicted a negative effect of climate change on the distribution of five freshwater fish of the genus Alburnus. Morid et al. (2016) found that the habitat suitability for Oxynoemacheilus bergianus will be decrease under climate change.
The aims of present study were to identify winners and losers of climate change among freshwater fishes and to use freshwater fishes as proxies of their ecosystems to identify high priority rivers for conservation under climate change. Thus, we predicted the impacts of climate on distribution of 15 endemic freshwater species in Iran using species distribution modeling.
Section snippets
Case study area
Iran with area around 164 million hectares is a biologically diverse country located in West Asia. In the country elevation ranges from −26 to 5770 m and precipitation ranges from 25 mm in deserts to 2000 mm in Hyrcanian forests. The Elburz Mountains (1000 km), Zagros Mountains (1500 km) and Kopet Dagh Mountains (650 km) are three major mountain ranges in the country. More than 8000 plants and around 1214 vertebrate species were recorded in the country. Fifteen freshwater ecoregions (1. Kura -
Climate change
The models predicted that climate change is likely to lead to a reduction in range size (i.e., the area predicted to be suitable for the species) for five species (Acanthobrama persidis, Alburnoides tabarestanensis, Alburnus doriae, Capoeta buhsei and Cobitis faridpaki; Fig. 2) while the range of ten species is likely to increase (Alburnoides idignensis, Alburnoides namaki, Alburnoides samiii, Barbus miliaris, Capoeta aculeate, Carasobarbus sublimus, Garra persica, Glyptothorax silviae,
Discussion
Under climate change, species will have three responses; adapting to new climate, tracking suitable habitat, or going extinct (Hannah, 2015). Climate change is likely to negatively affect most species but some may benefit from climate change if the amount of suitable habitat increases. Identifying winners and losers is becoming and important topic in climate change studies (Muths et al., 2017, Kafash et al., 2018). Having identified winners and losers it would be possible to manage each species
Conclusions
We identified five species which will lose their suitable habitats under climate change and listed 20 rivers that these species occur in. A suitable conservation action would be to protect these rivers by including them in the network of Iran’s protected areas. Large areas of low-elevation habitats of Acanthobrama persidis and Alburnus doriae and low and mid elevation habitats of Alburnoides tabarestanensis, Capoeta buhsei and Cobitis faridpaki will become unsuitable over the next few decades.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Masoud Yousefi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Arash Jouladeh-Roudbar: Investigation, Visualization, Writing - review & editing. Anooshe Kafash: Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The Ecology and Conservation Research Group (ECRG) was supported by Iran's National Elites Foundation. We would like to thank Benedikt R. Schmidt and Daniel Kane for reviewing a previous version of the manuscript.
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