Rare fish species in European lakes – patterns and processes

Abstract According to differences in life history and species niches, community assembly processes are predicted to differ between common and rare species. While neutral processes, in particular dispersal, should contribute strongly to assembly of rare species, environmental filtering (species sorting) should dominate the community assembly of common species. We analysed commonness and rarity by occurrence, abundance and geographic range among 82 fish species in 1871 European lakes and reservoirs. The common 25% (21 species) were excluded, and structure and assembly processes of the 75% rare (61 species) species occurring in 348 lakes were evaluated. General linear latent variable models indicated that environmental variables related to lake type (lakes vs. reservoirs), climate and ecosystem size predicted a large proportion of variance for both rare species presence/absence and abundance models, while spatial variables (co-occurrence in watersheds) contributed little to the models. To link community structure with assembly processes, the contribution of seven fish traits related to life history, feeding and habitat preference to predicting the geographic range of the rare species was analysed by boosted regression trees. Intermediate average fecundity and high maximum body length of species predicted smaller geographic range and hence a higher level of rarity, but the response curves of the variables were mostly non-linear and difficult to interpret. In contrast to our assumption, the results of the dominant assembly processes and predictors for rare species were very similar to those predicted for the common fish species in lakes at the continental scale.

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Publication Details

Journal
Biodiversity and Conservation
Published
2025-03-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-025-03046-5
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Fish Ecology and Management Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.31
Controls
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article

Rare fish species in European lakes – patterns and processes

Pietro Volta, Sandra Brucet, Christine Argillier, María Teresa Ferreira et al.
1 citations
Biodiversity and Conservation
Fish Ecology and Management Studies
2.31
article

Rare fish species in European lakes – patterns and processes

Pietro Volta, Sandra Brucet, Christine Argillier, María Teresa Ferreira, Thomas Mehner, Kerstin Holmgren, Fiona Kelly, Mikko Olin, Ian J. Winfield, Erik Jeppesen, Teet Krause
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Abstract According to differences in life history and species niches, community assembly processes are predicted to differ between common and rare species. While neutral processes, in particular dispersal, should contribute strongly to assembly of rare species, environmental filtering (species sorting) should dominate the community assembly of common species. We analysed commonness and rarity by occurrence, abundance and geographic range among 82 fish species in 1871 European lakes and reservoirs. The common 25% (21 species) were excluded, and structure and assembly processes of the 75% rare (61 species) species occurring in 348 lakes were evaluated. General linear latent variable models indicated that environmental variables related to lake type (lakes vs. reservoirs), climate and ecosystem size predicted a large proportion of variance for both rare species presence/absence and abundance models, while spatial variables (co-occurrence in watersheds) contributed little to the models. To link community structure with assembly processes, the contribution of seven fish traits related to life history, feeding and habitat preference to predicting the geographic range of the rare species was analysed by boosted regression trees. Intermediate average fecundity and high maximum body length of species predicted smaller geographic range and hence a higher level of rarity, but the response curves of the variables were mostly non-linear and difficult to interpret. In contrast to our assumption, the results of the dominant assembly processes and predictors for rare species were very similar to those predicted for the common fish species in lakes at the continental scale.

Biodiversity and ConservationVol. 34(5)
Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (PT), Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya (ES), Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES), University of Lisbon (PT), Yunnan University (CN), Estonian University of Life Sciences (EE), Middle East Technical University (TR), Aarhus University (DK), Aix-Marseille Université (FR), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SE), Natural Resources Institute Finland (FI), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (GB), Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes (FR), Bord Iascaigh Mharaga (IE), Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research (CN), Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (DE), Berlin Center for Genomics in Biodiversity Research (DE), Water Research Institute (IT), National Research Council (RO), Yunnan Institute of Environmental Sciences (CN), National Research Council (IT), Inland Fisheries Ireland (IE)
Openalex Percentile: Top 16%
Fish Ecology and Management Studies
2.31
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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