Evidence of a Shift in the Littoral Fish Community of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

PLoS One. 2017 Jan 24;12(1):e0170683. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170683. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Many estuarine and freshwater ecosystems worldwide have undergone substantial changes due to multiple anthropogenic stressors. Over the past two decades, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) in California, USA, saw a severe decline in pelagic fishes, a shift in zooplankton community composition, and a rapid expansion of invasive aquatic vegetation. To evaluate whether major changes have also occurred in the littoral fish community, we analyzed a beach seine survey dataset collected from 1995 to 2015 from 26 sites within the Delta. We examined changes in the Delta fish community at three different ecological scales (species, community, and biomass), using clustering analyses, trend tests, and change-point analyses. We found that the annual catch per effort for many introduced species and some native species have increased since 1995, while few experienced a decline. We also observed a steady pattern of change over time in annual fish community composition, driven primarily by a steady increase in non-native Centrarchid species. Lastly, we found that littoral fish biomass has essentially doubled over the 21-year study period, with Mississippi Silverside Menidia audens and fishes in the Centrarchidae family driving most of this increase. The changes in the catch per effort, fish community composition, and biomass per volume indicate that a shift has occurred in the Delta littoral fish community and that the same factors affecting the Delta's pelagic food web may have been a key driver of change.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biodiversity
  • Biomass
  • Biota*
  • California
  • Datasets as Topic
  • Ecological Parameter Monitoring
  • Ecosystem*
  • Estuaries*
  • Fishes*
  • Food Chain
  • Introduced Species
  • Population Dynamics
  • Time Factors
  • Zooplankton

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work. Salary support was provided for all authors by the California Department of Water Resources. The California Department of Water Resources had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.