TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jourdan, Jonas
A1  - Bierbach, David
A1  - Riesch, Rudiger
A1  - Schießl, Angela
A1  - Wigh, Adriana
A1  - Arias-Rodriguez, Lenin
A1  - Indy, Jeane Rimber
A1  - Klaus, Sebastian
A1  - Zimmer, Claudia
A1  - Plath, Martin
T1  - Microhabitat use, population densities, and size distributions of sulfur cave-dwelling Poecilia mexicana
T2  - PeerJ
N2  - The Cueva del Azufre in Tabasco, Mexico, is a nutrient-rich cave and its inhabitants need to cope with high levels of dissolved hydrogen sulfide and extreme hypoxia. One of the successful colonizers of this cave is the poeciliid fish Poecilia mexicana, which has received considerable attention as a model organism to examine evolutionary adaptations to extreme environmental conditions. Nonetheless, basic ecological data on the endemic cave molly population are still missing; here we aim to provide data on population densities, size class compositions and use of different microhabitats. We found high overall densities in the cave and highest densities at the middle part of the cave with more than 200 individuals per square meter. These sites have lower H2S concentrations compared to the inner parts where most large sulfide sources are located, but they are annually exposed to a religious harvesting ceremony of local Zoque people called La Pesca. We found a marked shift in size/age compositions towards an overabundance of smaller, juvenile fish at those sites. We discuss these findings in relation to several environmental gradients within the cave (i.e., differences in toxicity and lighting conditions), but we also tentatively argue that the annual fish harvest during a religious ceremony (La Pesca) locally diminishes competition (and possibly, cannibalism by large adults), which is followed by a phase of overcompensation of fish densities.
KW  - Cave fish
KW  - Extremophile teleosts
KW  - Fisheries
KW  - Rotenone
KW  - Overcompensation
Y1  - 2017
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/42523
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-425232
UR  - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4106196
SN  - 2167-8359
N1  - Copyright: © 2014 Jourdan et al. Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
VL  - 2
IS  - e490
SP  - 1
EP  - 18
PB  - PeerJ, Inc.
CY  - London [u. a.]
ER  -