![]() ![]() As withdrawals and diversions are the main threats to freshwater availability and quality, freshwater biodiversity is primarily threatened by habitat fragmentation and flow regulation. All these anthropogenic consequences determine the quality and quantity of freshwater, which affects ecological processes and dynamics that determine freshwater ecosystem productivity and integrity. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Īs the human population size increases, freshwater species and ecosystems are increasingly threatened by many development activities, including habitat alteration, river diversions, fragmentation and flow regulation, expansion of agricultural and urban landscapes, and climate change. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript.įunding: The author (SP) received field research grants from: Rufford Foundation (UK), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO-Australia), and WWF-Nepal. Received: OctoAccepted: JPublished: July 21, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Paudel et al. PLoS ONE 16(7):Įditor: Susana Caballero, Universidad de los Andes, COLOMBIA Identifying priority riverscapes for river cetaceans and prioritizing investment opportunities is an essential first step towards effective riverine cetacean conservation.Ĭitation: Paudel S, Koprowski JL, Thakuri U, Karki A (2021) In-stream habitat availability for river dolphins in response to flow: Use of ecological integrity to manage river flows. Considering the seasonal effects and changes in the availability of usable areas by flow alteration, adopting effective habitat retention plans by water-based development projects appears critical to avoid further ecological risks in aquatic species conservation. Owing to river dolphins’ dependence on the attribute of freshwater flow, they can be expected to be more affected by flow regulations as interactive effects. Substantial fragmentation in suitable pool availability and loss of longitudinal connectivity exhibited by dry season flow suggested a higher risk of adverse biological effects during the dry season, which may reduce population viability by reducing survivorship and reproduction failure. Flow and AWS relationships indicate that the flow during the dry season negatively contributed to AWS, whereas that of pre-monsoon maximized the AWS, suggesting that modifying flow regimes does alter in-stream habitats at varying spatial scales and may influence life-history strategies. This study reveals that distribution of area usable to GRD is highly regulated by the adequate flow and river attributes (velocity and depth) interactions that likely offer energetically efficient modes of locomotion to GRD, suggesting the hydro-physical environment as a major determinant of river dolphin distribution and abundance. We quantify the relationships between flow and the ecology of river cetaceans concerning Ganges River dolphins (GRD Platanista gangetica gangetica) usable area availability (AWS) for the low water season at wider flows (50–575 m 3/s) at finer spatial and temporal scales. ![]() Although river dolphins are sensitive to reduction in river flow, no studies quantify the relationships between flow and ecology of river dolphins to mitigate the potential adverse impacts of flow alteration. Previous studies predominantly highlighted maintenance of adequate flow for low water seasons when habitats contract and the risk of local extinction escalates. Population decline and extinction risk of river dolphins are primarily associated with flow alteration.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |