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Biomanipulating streams: a supplementary tool in lake restoration

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Abstract

Removal of cyprinid fish is a widely used biomanipulation tool to transform turbid shallow eutrophic lakes in north temperate regions into a clear water state. We here evaluate the removal of cyprinids from streams as a supplement to lake fishing. Since cyprinids often aggregate in high densities in lake inlet/outlet streams during winter migration, removal of fish in this space-confined habitat may be cost-efficient as compared to fish removal in the lake habitat. In two consecutive years, we annually removed up to 35% of the dominant cyprinids from an inlet stream to a lake and argue that this could easily be increased with a more targeted fishing effort. Concurrently, we monitored species- and length-specific variation in migration propensity, to explore how this relates to efficient fish removal. Smaller planktivores generally had a much higher migratory propensity than larger benthivores. Hence, stream fishing specifically targets species and size groups that are less efficiently controlled with traditional lake fishing methods. As a rule of thumb, stream fishing is most efficient when water temperature is 2–6°C. Prior to implementing fish removals from streams, the potential evolutionary consequences of the targeted removal of migratory phenotypes should be considered.

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Acknowledgements

This project was financially supported by Danish National Fishing License Funds. We thank the local landowners at Lake Søgård and technicians and students from DTU Aqua who helped to tag fish and remove cyprinid fish species from the inlet stream of Lake Søgård. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments early in the review process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Vejlsøvej 39, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Christian Skov, Joan H. Hansen & Henrik Baktoft

  2. Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Center for Ecology, Evolution and Biogeochemistry, EAWAG Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Seestrasse 79, 6047, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland

    Jakob Brodersen

  3. Division of Aquatic Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Jakob Brodersen

  4. Department of Biology - Aquatic Ecology, Lund University, Ecology Building, 22362, Lund, Sweden

    Christer Brönmark, Lars-Anders Hansson, Kaj Hulthén & P. Anders Nilsson

  5. Division of Evolution and Genomic Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Ben B. Chapman

  6. Department of Environmental and Life Sciences - Biology, Karlstad University, 651 88, Karlstad, Sweden

    P. Anders Nilsson

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  1. Christian Skov
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  2. Joan H. Hansen
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  4. Jakob Brodersen
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  5. Christer Brönmark
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  6. Lars-Anders Hansson
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  7. Kaj Hulthén
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  8. Ben B. Chapman
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  9. P. Anders Nilsson
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Correspondence to Christian Skov.

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Handling editor: Mariana Meerhoff

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Skov, C., Hansen, J.H., Baktoft, H. et al. Biomanipulating streams: a supplementary tool in lake restoration. Hydrobiologia 829, 205–216 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3832-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3832-4

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