Patterns in species richness and endemism of European freshwater fish

By Y. Reyjol, B. Hugueny, D. Pont, P. Bianco, U. Beier, N. Caiola, F. Casals, I. Cowx, Alcibiades, Economou and 6 more. 2006

301 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aim To analyse the patterns in species richness and endemism of the native European riverine fish fauna, in the light of the Messinian salinity crisis and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Location European continent. Methods After gathering native fish faunistic lists of 406 hydrographical networks, we defined large biogeographical regions with homogenous fish fauna, based on a hierarchical cluster analysis. Then we analysed and compared the patterns in species richness and endemism among these regions, as well as species‐area relationships. Results Among the 233 native species present in the data set, the Cyprinidae family was strongly dominant (> 50% of the total number of species). Seven biogeographical regions were defined: Western Peri-Mediterranea, Central Peri-Mediterranea, Eastern Peri-Mediterranea, Ponto-Caspian Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe and Western Europe. The highest regional species richness was observed for Central Peri-Mediterranea and Ponto-Caspian Europe. The highest endemic richness was found in Central Peri-Mediterranea. Species‐area relationships were characterized by high slope values for Peri-Mediterranean Europe and low values for Central and Western Europe. Main conclusions The results were in agreement with the ‘Lago Mare’ hypothesis explaining the specificity of Peri-Mediterranean fish fauna, as well as with the history of recolonization of Central and Western Europe from Ponto-Caspian Europe following the LGM. The results also agreed with the mechanisms of speciation and extinction influencing fish diversity in hydrographical networks. We advise the use of the seven biogeographical regions for further studies, and suggest considering

Subfields: Aquatic Science, Genetics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/318a2de9f0c6ad26732b0c914ac7baa144d6af8e

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Citations in the corpus

Latitudinal variation of diversity in European freshwater animals is not concordant across habitat types (2008, unknown): “With our study, we underline that to understand differences in the spatial variation of biological diversity among taxa one has to consider the history of regions and lineages (Graham et al., 2006; Rahbek et al., 2007; Reyjol et al., 2007; Svenning & Skov, 2007) as well as the ecological traits of s”
Biogeography of Iberian freshwater fishes revisited: the roles of historical versus contemporary constraints (2009, background): “…as well as postspeciation dispersal in North America (Hocutt & Wiley, 1986), Lower Mesoamerica (Smith & Bermingham, 2005), South America (Hubert & Renno, 2006), West Africa (Hugueny & Lévêque, 1994), Europe (Reyjol et al., 2007), Asia (Yap, 2002) and across the world (Lévêque et al., 2008).”
Global diversity of fish (Pisces) in freshwater (2007, background): “• Twenty families but the major groups are Cyprinidae—more than 50% of the species, (Revenga & Kura, 2003; Reyjol et al., 2007), Salmonidae, Coregonidae, Gobiidae and Cobitidae.”
Impact of twenty‐first century climate change on diadromous fish spread over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East (2009, background): “…ago) with the formation of the semienclosed seas in the Ponto-Caspian region and their highly endemic fauna (Hsü et al., 1977); and the last glaciation (18 000 years ago) with the recolonization of northern Europe taking place from the Danubian refuge (Oberdorff et al., 1997; Reyjol et al., 2007).”
Species contribute differently to the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic alpha and beta diversity of freshwater fish communities (2014, background): “…and Rhône rivers) tended to have the most diverse fish communities; in-step with the North to South colonization of species from the Danube River Basin refuge following the 1240 Diversity and Distributions, 20, 1235–1244, ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd last glaciation event (Reyjol et al., 2007).”
Decomposing functional β-diversity reveals that low functional β-diversity is driven by low functional turnover in European fish assemblages (2013, background): “…2 & S1) have the highest values of taxonomic turnover (and hence b-diversity) as they host endemic species (that differentiated in this isolated glacial refuge) and only a low proportion of the common species of western Europe that still have not (re)colonized the peninsula (Reyjol et al., 2007).”
How many dimensions are needed to accurately assess functional diversity? A pragmatic approach for assessing the quality of functional spaces (2015, background): “There is thus a slight latitudinal gradient in species and functional richness across Europe and a longitudinal decrease in functional richness from east to west but of lower magnitude than the decrease in species richness (Villéger et al., 2013).”
Functional homogenization exceeds taxonomic homogenization among European fish assemblages (2014, background): “The biogeography of the European freshwater fish fauna is marked by the legacy of the last glaciation and the subsequent recolonization from the Ponto-Caspian and Mediterranean refuges (Griffiths, 2006; Reyjol et al., 2007).”
Assessing the health of European rivers using functional ecological guilds of fish communities: standardising species classification and approaches to metric selection (2007, methodology): “This classification was expanded into a river basin/river region-specific scheme to allow the development of ichthyo-graphical regions within Europe ( Reyjol, Hugueny, Pont, Bianco, Beier, Caiola, Casals, Cowx, Economou, Ferreira, Haidvogl, Noble, De Sostoa, Vigneron & Virbickas 2007 ) for use in th”