Murray River habitat restoration increases native fish populations

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2019/04/08/murray-river-habitat-restoration-increases-native-fish-populations/

April 8, 2019
Murray River habitat restoration increases native fish populations

Dubbed the ‘honeypot effect’ — a team of researchers from Flinders University and around Australia have shown that providing woody habitats, or ‘snags’, for native fish in the Murray River increases their population size.

In a paper released in the scientific journal Ecological Applications, Dr Jarod Lyon from the Arthur Rylah Institute and Professor Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University describe studying 110 km of the Murray River over seven years, installing more than 4450 ‘snags’ and analysing more than six million records of tagged fish.

“We found a three-fold increase in the abundance of Murray cod, and a doubling of abundance of golden perch, in the reach of river where habitat restoration was done compared to sites where habitat remained constant”, says Dr Lyon.

“In addition, abundances of the target species in the nearby reference sites remained stable, indicating that the numbers of fish across the whole study area had increased, rather than just the same fishes just moving around.”

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https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.1882

[Thyla]

1. Love these captain obvious studies

The de-snagging of the Murray for timber and safe steamer passage combined with the introduction of locks have had a huge environmental impact on the river. If they can release more water from the cotton farms upstream and keep on adding more habitat the native species will flourish.

Shame that it's the cotton farms who are in the pocket of the government though.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Something which seems "obvious" is not always true

That's why studies like this are important, even if they verify what we think we know.

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“Restoring degraded freshwater ecosystems like the embattled Murray-Darling Basin is an expensive and colossal task, so knowing that our restoration attempts actually work to increase the number of native fish gives us hope that we can keep these unique species around well into the future.”

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“These results give great confidence to river managers that installing woody habitat really does help native fish populations thrive, and delivers substantial benefits to the communities using them”, says Dr Lyon.

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