Historical ecology of riverine fish in Europe

Aquat Sci (2015) 77:315–324 DOI 10.1007/s00027-015-0400-0 Aquatic Sciences EDITORIAL Historical ecology of riverine fish in Europe Gertrud Haidvogl • Richard Hoffmann • Didier Pont • Mathias Jungwirth • Verena Winiwarter Received: 19 June 2015 / Accepted: 27 June 2015 / Published online: 7 July 2015  The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract The temporal dynamic of riverine ecosystems and their fish communities and populations has been addressed in ecological theory and management for several decades. A growing number of case studies on the historic development especially of European and North American rivers have been published. Nonetheless, a theoretical debate about the contributions and limits of historical approaches and interdisciplinary co-operation is lacking. This article presents a brief overview of the role of history in river and fish ecology and suggests historical ecology as a scientific field that can offer a framework for future research. Based on case studies compiled in this special issue on the ‘‘Historical ecology of riverine fish in Europe’’, we draw conclusions on long-term changes of fish communities, on fisheries, aquatic ecosystem management and past habitat alterations and the potential of archaeological This article is part of the special issue ‘Historical ecology of riverine fish in Europe’. G. Haidvogl (&)
M. Jungwirth Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Max Emanuelstraße 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria e-mail: R. Hoffmann Department of History, 2140 Vari Hall, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada D. Pont Irstea UR HBAN, 1 rue Pierre-Gilles de Gennes—CS 10030, 92761 Antony, France V. Winiwarter Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria remains and written sources to study them. We discuss how modelling of historical fish data can help elucidate the effects of climate change and human influences on rivers and fish. Finally, we account for the necessity to consider appropriate spatial and temporal scales. In conclusion we call for future comparative studies on continental and global scales and methodological development, which can benefit especially from recent advances in marine historical ecology. We suggest that future interdisciplinary studies of ecologists, hydrologists, historians and archaeologists can reveal the history of riverine ecosystems as socio-ecological systems, addressing both their natural dynamics and human dimension. Such an endeavor can also support developing management plans for habitat restoration and conservation against the background of global change. Keywords Historical ecology
History of fish
European rivers
Historical sources
Integrated river basin management The temporal dimension and history in river and fish ecology The dynamic nature of ecosystems has been addressed for several decades. Disturbance theory is often identified as an important milestone of the debate. White and Pickett (1985) defined disturbance as a ‘‘relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community or population structure and changes resources, substrate availability, or the physical environment’’. Resh et al. (1988) applied the idea of disturbance regimes in river ecology. In 1989, Ward conceptualized lotic ecosystems as 4-dimensional (Ward 1989). He emphasized the role of temporal dynamics apart from the three spatial dimensions, i.e. the longitudinal, the 123 316 lateral and the vertical and pointed to the difficulties to distinguish low-level anthropogenic perturbations from normal variations resulting from long-term natural cycles (Ward 1989; see also Hohensinner et al. 2011). Later, concepts rooted in the idea of an ecological equilibrium have been challenged, taking into account species dispersal and metapopulation theory (Hanski 1999), the role of spatial heterogeneity on ecological processes and the importance of fluxes between ecosystems (Pickett and Cadenasso 1995). Ecosystems are now seen as unstable, open, hierarchical and scaled (O‘Neill 2001). Without referring explicitly to the progress in ecological theory, a growing number of case studies on the historical development of riverine ecosystems have been published since the end of the 1980s. For European river systems, Petts et al. (1989) presented long-term changes of river morphology and hydrology. They also accounted for biological studies with a focus on fish. Similar publications followed for the Americas, even treating fish specifically (see e.g. Rinne et al. 2005). On a general level, Downs and Gregory (2004) identified six historical periods of river use and according management practices. They distinguish hydraulic civilizations, preindustrial societies, the period of the industrial revolution, the late 19th to mid-20th century, the second half of the 20th century and finally, the period since the late 20th century, which accounts for integrated river basin management, re-regulation of flow, mitigation, enhancement and restoration techniques as well as hybrid and bioengineered revetments. In terms of biodiversity change, three periods are usually differentiated with reference in particular to the so-called ‘‘Columbian exchange’’. Notwithstanding earlier species‘transfers on a smaller scale, the ‘‘discovery’’ of the Americas by Europeans in 1492 is perceived as a turning point in the history of ecosystems and their biota (see especially Crosby 1972, 1986). In the second half of the 19th century, the industrial revolution with its improved means of transport triggered large-scale and frequent exchange of species. Besides deliberate introductions, for which the rainbow trout can be cited as an example for some European freshwater systems, this led also to the translocation of species to new habitats where they were considered as non-native or even invasive (di Castri 1989 as an early study). In the 1990s, historical approaches gained importance in ecosystem management. Restoration ecology was increasingly relying on historically based reference conditions and ‘‘historical ecology’’ has been adopted as a specific approach to study past ecosystems and their development (see e.g. Swetnam et al. 1999; Egan and Howell 2001). Freshwater system management was no exception. When the European Water Framework Directive (WFD, EC 2000) came into force, the idea of natural, i.e. anthropogenically undisturbed aquatic systems as a target of 123 G. Haidvogl et al. restoration even received legal status. Although the WFD is not interested in historical conditions as such, it stimulated related research, as it requires defining a high ecological status, reflecting conditions in the absence of human influence (e.g. Jungwirth et al. 2002). Recent studies in European fish ecology thus often focus (...truncated)