• DOI:10.1007/s10641-014-0298-8
• Corpus ID: 254472843

Relationship between environmental and geographic factors and the distribution of exotic fishes in tributaries of the balsas river basin, Mexico

@article{MejaMojica2014RelationshipBE,
  title={Relationship between environmental and geographic factors and the distribution of exotic fishes in tributaries of the balsas river basin, Mexico},
  author={Humberto Mej{\'i}a‐Mojica and Topiltzin Contreras-MacBeath and Gorgonio Ruiz-Campos},
  journal={Environmental Biology of Fishes},
  year={2014},
  volume={98},
  pages={611 - 621}
}

• H. Mejía‐Mojica, T. Contreras-MacBeath, G. Ruiz-Campos
• Published 4 July 2014
• Environmental Science
• Environmental Biology of Fishes

The alteration of aquatic ecosystems and increasing aquarium fish trade with exotic species is promoting the presence and invasion of these species in large river systems, with the consequent loss of native biodiversity and the homogenization of aquatic systems. The Chontalcuatlan-Amacuzac hydrological system belonging to the biogeographical province of the Balsas River is one of the main regions in Mexico devoted to the breeding and rearing of aquarium fish, where the improper handling of these organisms has caused their escape to adjacent hydrological systems and, together with urban and industrial pollution, are changing schemas and levels of regional biodiversity. As a first approximation to determine these effects, we evaluate a segment of 140 km of this hydrological system through surveys in 12 sites during the time of major climatic and flow stability, and relating environmental variables with the distribution and abundance of fish. Also, the structure of fish assemblages was assessed by means of similarity and multivariate statistical methods (correspondence and principal components analysis), and these assemblages were found to be segregated by a thermal gradient. Exotic fish were dominant in conditions of low environmental quality, while native species were restricted to areas with better quality of water and geographic isolation. Exotic taxa such as Amatitlania nigrofasciata, Pterigloplictys disjunctivus, Pterigloplictys pardalis, Poeciliopsis gracilis and Heterandria bimaculata, have achieved the degree of invasive due to the fact that they are distributed of abundant manner in the entire hydrological system.