Long-term trends of fishery landings and target fish populations in the lower La Plata Basin

PABLO A. SCARABOTTI; LUIS O. LUCIFORA; LUIS A. ESPÍNOLA; ANA P. RABUFFETTI; JORGE LIOTTA; JULIA E. MANTINIAN; JUAN P. ROUX; NATALIA SILVA; LEANDRO BALBONI; FACUNDO VARGAS; L. DANILO DEMONTE

NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY

SOC BRASILEIRA ICTIOLOGIA

Lugar: Porto Alegre; Año: 2021 vol. 19

1679-6225

The La Plata basin is the second largest basin of South America and hassupported important river fisheries for more than a century. In this paper, weevaluate for the first time the historical trends of landings of 21 fish taxa andthe recent population trends of 27 species of commercial fishes in the lowerLa Plata basin (Argentina). We compiled three kinds of data sets: Total fisherylandings (between 1934 and 1986) and exports (1994‒2019), fisheries monitoringprograms of Chaco and Santa Fe provinces in the Paraná River (2009‒2019), andsurveys of fish populations in the Upper (Corrientes, 1993‒2020) and Middle(EBIPES, 2005‒2020) Paraná River. The analysis of the historical landingsshowed more species declining in the lower portion of the basin than in theupper basin. Regarding recent population trends, Pimelodus spp., Hoplias spp.,Salminus brasiliensis, Luciopimelodus pati, and Ageneiosus spp. declined in morethan one region, while Megaleporinus spp., Pterodoras granulosus, and Oxydoraskneri showed stable to positive trends, with the other species varying in theirtrends between regions. These tendencies could be associated to a combinationof factors such as overfishing and environmental changes that would require anecosystem approach for their adequate management.