PROSPER 101105250 - MSCA Post Doc European Fellowship 2022 - (Phenotypic diversity and resilience to environmental change in freshwater fish)

欧洲的河流被人类建造的障碍物高度分割，阻碍了鱼类的运动，这种分割导致淡水鱼类多样性和丰富度大幅下降。欧盟生物多样性战略旨在尽可能消除河流障碍，以便到2030年欧洲将有25000公里的河流自由流动。然而，拆除障碍物只是偶尔可行，因此工程鱼通过提供替代的重新连接工具。通行证提供了一个更容易的路线，鱼类使用绕过障碍。虽然这些鱼道经常是在河流与不同的鱼类组合，他们往往是建设，主要是促进通过的洄游鱼类，特别是溯河产卵的鲑科鱼类，尽管大多数鱼类受到影响的碎片。鱼通行证的这种种间选择性潜在地由其种内选择性复合，其中只有特定的表型分组能够成功地使用通行证。因此，虽然鱼通行证经常被用来提供河流重新连接在欧洲，在何种程度上，他们施加新的选择压力的鱼类群落-以及相关的后果-仍然高度不确定。我们的项目克服了这种高度的不确定性，通过汇集一位优秀的欧洲研究人员，有潜力发展成为一个全球科学领导者，拥有一个在鱼类跟踪技术和鱼类行为评估方面具有强大能力的研究小组。总之，我们通过应用最新的生物遥测方法，在英国西部的下游塞文河上使用鱼类通行证的鱼类种群和社区的性能产生新的知识。我们使用这些数据，然后建立新的代理模型，预测生态后果的障碍和鱼类通行证。这些结果为河流管理者提供了知识，以更好地解决适用于所有物种的河流碎片化问题。

Europe's rivers are highly fragmented by human constructed barriers that block the movement of fish, with this fragmentation driving substantial declines in freshwater fish diversity and abundance. The EU Biodiversity Strategy aims to remove riverine barriers wherever possible so that 25000 km more river will be free-flowing in Europe by 2030. However, barrier removal is only occasionally feasible and so engineered fish passes provide alternative re-connection tools. The passes provide an easier route for fish to use to bypass the barrier. Although these fish passes are frequently on rivers with a diverse fish assemblage, they tend to be constructed to primarily facilitate the passage of diadromous fishes, especially anadromous salmonid fishes, despite most fish species being impacted by the fragmentation. This inter-specific selectivity of fish passes is potentially compounded by their intra-specific selectivity, where only specific phenotype groupings are able to use the pass successfully. Thus, while fish passes are used frequently to provide river reconnection in Europe, the extent to which they impose new selection pressures on fish communities - and the associated consequences - remain high uncertain. Our project overcomes this high uncertainty in fish passage selectivity by bringing together an outstanding European researcher with potential to develop into a global science leader with a research group with strong competencies in fish tracking technologies and fish behaviour assessment. Together, we generate new knowledge on the performance of fish populations and communities using fish passes on the lower River Severn in western Britain through application of the latest biotelemetry methods. We use these data to then build novel agent based models that predict the ecological consequences of barriers and fish passes. These results provide river managers with the knowledge to better resolve river fragmentation that works for all species.