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Fish assemblages from touristic and non-visited headwater streams differ

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Abstract

Nature-based tourism is a growing industry in recent years, including underwater trails in clear headwater streams. These activities, however, bring little known impacts, most of them in the individual and population levels. To investigate if human presence can affect the fish community, we compared similar reference and tourism areas in terms of species accumulation curve, ecological indicators (richness, total abundance, diversity and dominance), composition similarity and indicator species. Only fish abundance did not differ between reference and tourism areas. Richness, diversity and dominance were all higher in tourism areas. Fish species composition also differed between reference and tourism, guided by species substitution. We add ecological data to previous behavioral studies that have already evidenced the effects of tourism on fish. We also suggest a strict control of the number and permanence of visitors in the water, the forbiddance of fish feeding and maintenance of the riparian coverage to avoid irreversible damages to these fragile environments.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the tourism operators in Nobres: Jane Lambert, Kleber Oliveira, Antônio Campos and Isaías de Almeida, for granting us access to the sampling sites and giving continuous support for the development of this research. Fish identification was only possible due to specialists’ help, for that we thank Dr. Francisco Langeani, Roselene Silva Costa Ferreira and Waldo Troy, who also gave us valuable theoretical contributions along with Dr. Divina Sueide de Godoy and Lilian Casatti. We also thank Diogo Andrade Costa for statistical analysis assistance and Megan Topia for grammar review. This project was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de Mato Grosso (FAPEMAT Process 002.191/2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, Campus Universitário de Tangará da Serra, CEP 78300-000, Mato Grosso, Brazil

    Giliard Balduino

  2. Instituto Federal do Norte de Minas Gerais, Campus Salinas, CEP 39560-000, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Tatianne Marques

  3. Universidade de Brasília, Campus de Planaltina, CEP 73.340-710, Distrito Federal, Brazil

    Eduardo Bessa

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  1. Giliard Balduino
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Correspondence to Eduardo Bessa.

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Balduino, G., Marques, T. & Bessa, E. Fish assemblages from touristic and non-visited headwater streams differ. Environ Biol Fish 100, 575–584 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-017-0586-1

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