Phylogeography of a threatened freshwater fish (Mogurnda adspersa) in eastern Australia: conservation implications

2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leanne K. Faulks ◽  
Dean M. Gilligan ◽  
Luciano B. Beheregaray
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Restricted Gene Flow ◽  
Evolutionary Diversification ◽  
Conservation Implications ◽  
Low Genetic Diversity ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
High Conservation ◽  
Australian Freshwater

Phylogeography is a field that has the potential to provide an integrative approach to the conservation of threatened species. The southern purple spotted gudgeon, Mogurnda adspersa, is a small freshwater fish that was once common and widely distributed throughout south-eastern Australia. However, habitat alteration has dramatically reduced the size and the range of Murray–Darling Basin populations, which are now classified as endangered. Here patterns of genetic structure and evolutionary history of M. adspersa in southern Queensland and the Murray–Darling Basin are elucidated using three regions of the mitochondrial DNA, the ATPase 6 and 8 and the control region. Murray–Darling Basin populations are characterised by lineages with highly localised endemism, very low genetic diversity and restricted gene flow. Phylogenetic reconstructions show that Murray–Darling Basin populations comprise a monophyletic clade that possibly originated by range expansion from the coast around 1.6 million years ago. It is proposed that the divergent Murray–Darling Basin clade is of high conservation priority and requires separate management. The present study further exemplifies the role of drainage rearrangement in driving evolutionary diversification in Australian freshwater fishes, an historical process with profound implications for conservation management.

Conservation of an inauspicious endangered freshwater fish, Murray hardyhead (Craterocephalus fluviatilis), during drought and competing water demands in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain M. Ellis ◽  
Daniel Stoessel ◽  
Michael P. Hammer ◽  
Scotte D. Wedderburn ◽  
Lara Suitor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
River Regulation ◽  
Isolated Populations ◽  
Conservation Units ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Conservation Concern ◽  
Australian Freshwater

Approximately 40% of Australian freshwater fish species are of conservation concern, largely because of the impacts of river regulation, habitat fragmentation and alien fishes. Murray hardyhead is a threatened fish endemic to the southern Murray–Darling Basin in Australia, which has declined significantly in range and abundance since European settlement. Conservation of the species has relied largely on environmental watering of off-channel wetlands where isolated populations persist. This became problematic during recent drought (1997–2010) because of competing demands for limited water, and resentment towards environmental watering programs from communities that themselves were subject to reduced water entitlements. In response, emergency conservation measures prioritised the delivery of environmental water to minimise applied volumes. Captive maintenance programs were established for fish rescued from four genetically distinct conservation units, with varying levels of breeding success. Several translocations of wild and captive-bred fish to surrogate refuge sites were also conducted. Future recovery of the species should secure existing natural and stocked populations and translocate fish to additional appropriate sites to spread risk and reinstate natural pathways for dispersal. The approach to the conservation of Murray hardyhead during extreme environmental conditions provides insights to inform the management of fishes in other drought-prone regions of the world.

scholarly journals A review of on-ground recovery actions for threatened freshwater fish in Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lintermans
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Threatened Species ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Prolonged Drought ◽  
Conservation Concern ◽  
Habitat Enhancement ◽  
General Conservation

Freshwater fish are a highly threatened group and recovery of these threatened species is an increasingly difficult ecological and social challenge. There are many different on-ground recovery actions available to managers, but no synthesis of what, how or why these recovery actions have been deployed. The present paper reviews 428 reported on-ground recovery actions from a survey of practitioners of threatened freshwater-fish recovery in Australia. Recovery actions were grouped into 12 categories, with the most commonly utilised recovery categories being harvest control, translocation, habitat enhancement and stock enhancement. Major drivers of recovery actions were general conservation concern, recovery plans and emergency responses. The number of recovery actions grew significantly in the decade beginning 2000 as the impacts of prolonged drought in south-eastern Australia intensified. In all, 58% of recovery actions occurred in the Murray–Darling Basin, although this region holds only 27% of the 74 listed threatened freshwater fish in Australia. Few or no recovery actions were reported for many species, and few actions occurred in northern or western parts of the country. More than 80% of recovery actions reportedly had some form of monitoring. The diversity of management interventions is reviewed, and patterns and issues are identified to guide future recovery efforts.

Resolving the taxonomy, range and ecology of biogeographically isolated and critically endangered populations of an Australian freshwater galaxiid, Galaxias truttaceus

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 350 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Morgan ◽  
Stephen J. Beatty ◽  
Paul G. Close ◽  
Mark G. Allen ◽  
Peter J. Unmack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critically Endangered ◽  
Conservation Priority ◽  
Contemporary Gene Flow ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Ecological Criteria ◽  
High Conservation ◽  
Riverine Habitats ◽  
Australian Freshwater ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Western Australian

The spotted galaxias (or trout minnow), Galaxias truttaceus, is a species that is restricted to south-western and south-eastern Australia, but there has long been conjecture as to whether the geographically and Critically Endangered Western Australian populations represent a subspecies (Galaxias truttaceus hesperius). We provide evidence that Western Australian populations, on the basis of a combination of genetic, geographic and ecological criteria, should be considered an evolutionary significant unit, which merits management as a high conservation priority. Substructure at nuclear and matrilineal genetic markers is not suggestive of species-level divergence, but rather of discrete western and eastern Australian subpopulations with limited contemporary gene flow. In contrast to many eastern populations that are diadromous, all western populations are potamodromous. Adults live and spawn in riverine habitats and larvae drift downstream to coastal lakes, where they spend several months, before undertaking a distinct upstream recruitment migration as juveniles to colonise riverine habitats. Instream barriers that disconnect riverine and lentic habitats restrict distributional range and presumably affect reproductive success of Western Australian populations. Conserving the remaining populations in Western Australia will require ongoing efforts to reduce the impact of emerging threats, particularly those related to instream barriers, introduced species and reductions in water quantity and quality.

Occurrence of Contracaecum bancrofti larvae in fish in the Murray–Darling Basin

2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (05) ◽  
pp. 574-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Shamsi ◽  
A. Stoddart ◽  
L. Smales ◽  
S. Wassens
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Parasite Prevalence ◽  
Fish Parasites ◽  
Introduced Fish ◽  
Suitable Host ◽  
Nematode Larvae ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Eastern Australia

AbstractThere is a paucity of information on the diversity and occurrence of freshwater fish parasites in Australia. This study investigates the distribution and occurrence of a parasitic nematode of the genusContracaecumin freshwater fish from south-eastern Australia. Fish (n= 508) belonging to nine species and eight families were collected from eight wetlands associated with the Murrumbidgee River floodplain in the southern Murray–Darling Basin and subjected to laboratory examination. Third-stage nematode larvae were found in eight of the nine fish species. The exception was the fly-specked hardeyhead (Craterocephalus stercusmuscarum), although only one specimen of this species was examined. Nematode larvae were identified asContracaecum bancroftiusing a combined morphological and molecular approach. The parasite was most prevalent in weather loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus; 34.8%) and Australian smelt (Retropinna semoni; 21.4%), followed by carp (Cyprinus carpio; 9.5%), of which the former and latter are non-native species.Contracaecumprevalence differed between locations, with Two Bridges having the highest number of infected fish. This may be due to the higher number of suitable host species collected at these localities.Contracaecumspp. are parasites with low host specificity that have also been reported in Australian marine fish, humans and piscivorous birds. The high parasite prevalence in the two abundant non-native fish species in the region suggests that they act as a suitable host for this endemic parasite, resulting in the increase in the parasite population. It would be interesting to study host–parasite interactions in this area, especially if introduced fish populations declined dramatically in the attempt to eradicate them or control their population.

Deep phylogenetic structure has conservation implications for ornate rainbowfish (Melanotaeniidae:Rhadinocentrus ornatus) in Queensland, eastern Australia

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Page ◽  
Suman Sharma ◽  
Jane M. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Mitochondrial Atpase ◽  
Isolated Populations ◽  
Exotic Fish ◽  
Phylogenetic Structure ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Conservation Implications ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Atpase Gene

The freshwater fish, Rhadinocentrus ornatus Regan, 1914, has a patchy distribution through coastal drainages of Queensland and New South Wales, eastern Australia. Isolated populations of R. ornatus are found on several islands, as well as in a disjunct northern population 350 km from its nearest conspecific population. Deoxyribonucleic acid was extracted and sequenced for the mitochondrial ATPase gene to describe the geographic and genetic subdivision within the species. Four major clades were identified. These clades diverged between two and seven million years ago and so represent long-term divisions and possible units of conservation. There are conservation implications in that the narrow and localised distribution of R. ornatus overlaps with an area of large-scale land clearing, high human population and threats from introduced exotic fish. A particularly high centre of Rhadinocentrus diversity in the Tin Can Bay area of Queensland presents some interesting questions about the evolution of the genus Rhadinocentrus.

Comparative mitochondrial phylogeography of two legless lizards (Pygopodidae) from Queensland’s fragmented woodlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 142-150
Author(s):  
Jessica Worthington Wilmer ◽  
Andrew P. Amey ◽  
Carmel McDougall ◽  
Melanie Venz ◽  
Stephen Peck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
The West ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Low Genetic Diversity ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Open Forests ◽  
Fossorial Species

Sclerophyll woodlands and open forests once covered vast areas of eastern Australia, but have been greatly fragmented and reduced in extent since European settlement. The biogeographic and evolutionary history of the biota of eastern Australia’s woodlands also remains poorly known, especially when compared to rainforests to the east, or the arid biome to the west. Here we present an analysis of patterns of mitochondrial genetic diversity in two species of Pygopodid geckos with distributions centred on the Brigalow Belt Bioregion of eastern Queensland. One moderately large and semi-arboreal species, Paradelma orientalis, shows low genetic diversity and no clear geographic structuring across its wide range. In contrast a small and semi-fossorial species, Delma torquata, consists of two moderately divergent clades, one from the ranges and upland of coastal areas of south-east Queensland, and other centred in upland areas further inland. These data point to varying histories of geneflow and refugial persistance in eastern Australia’s vast but now fragmented open woodlands. The Carnarvon Ranges of central Queensland are also highlighted as a zone of persistence for cool and/or wet-adapted taxa, however the evolutionary history and divergence of most outlying populations in these mountains remains unstudied.

Phylogenetics and revised taxonomy of the Australian freshwater cod genus, Maccullochella (Percichthyidae)

2010 ◽  
Vol 61 (9) ◽  
pp. 980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine J. Nock ◽  
Martin S. Elphinstone ◽  
Stuart J. Rowland ◽  
Peter R. Baverstock
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Data ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Taxonomic Revision ◽  
Protein Coding ◽  
Protein Coding Genes ◽  
Allopatric Populations ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Murray Cod ◽  
Australian Freshwater

Determining the phylogenetic and taxonomic relationships among allopatric populations can be difficult, especially when divergence is recent and morphology is conserved. We used mitochondrial sequence data from the control region and three protein-coding genes (1253 bp in total) and genotypes determined at 13 microsatellite loci to examine the evolutionary relationships among Australia’s largest freshwater fish, the Murray cod, Maccullochella peelii peelii, from the inland Murray–Darling Basin, and its allopatric sister taxa from coastal drainages, the eastern freshwater cod, M. ikei, and Mary River cod, M. peelii mariensis. Phylogenetic analyses provided strong support for taxon-specific clades, with a clade containing both of the eastern taxa reciprocally monophyletic to M. peelii peelii, suggesting a more recent common ancestry between M. ikei and M. peelii mariensis than between the M. peelii subspecies. This finding conflicts with the existing taxonomy and suggests that ancestral Maccullochella crossed the Great Dividing Range in the Pleistocene and subsequently diverged in eastern coastal drainages. Evidence from the present study, in combination with previous morphological and allozymatic data, demonstrates that all extant taxa are genetically and morphologically distinct. The taxonomy of Maccullochella is revised, with Mary River cod now recognised as a species, Maccullochella mariensis, a sister species to eastern freshwater cod, M. ikei. As a result of the taxonomic revision, Murray cod is M. peelii.

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