FishME

Threats to mountain aquatic ecosystems are multiple. Yet, besides climate change, fish stocking of naturally fishless lakes has been identified as particularly detrimental to water quality and biodiversity. Due to the magnitude of the ecological impact and to the global extent of fish introductions into mountain lakes, introduced fish are perhaps the most important threat to mountain lake biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and water quality. This threat is particularly important as fish introductions co-occur with a number of other anthropogenic activities such as human population growth, changing economic activities, land-use change, urbanisation, pollution, loss and degradation of aquatic habitats, overexploitation, flow modifications and alien species invasions. Together and in interaction with climate change, these factors accelerate and exacerbate the environmental and ecological degradation of mountain aquatic ecosystems and the loss of unique species and life forms. Yet, despite strong concerns over the long-term health and functioning of aquatic ecosystems, experimental and restoration studies that link fish stocking to pollution, aquatic disease ecology, and ecosystem health, are still scarce.