Taenioides cirratus, (Blyth, 1860) (Blyth, 1860)

Qin, Jiao, Cheng, Fei, Zhang, Lei, Schmidt, Bjorn Victor, Liu, Jian & Xie, Songguang, 2019, Invasions of two estuarine gobiid species interactively induced from water diversion and saltwater intrusion, Management of Biological Invasions 10 (1), pp. 139-150 : 144

Invasion of T. cirratus

Our first observation of T. cirratus in Nansi Lake was during the fish spawning season survey in May 2012. It occasionally occurred in the catches of commercial shrimp traps in lower Nansi Lake, but not in upper Nansi Lake above the Erji Dam ( Figure 1 ). Fishermen reported that this fish was initially caught by shrimp traps in lower Nansi Lake in 2011, only in the lake area near Hanzhuang where the Grand Canal flows into the lake ( Figure 1 ). By 2013, this species had become a common species in the harvest of shrimp traps throughout lower Nansi Lake. It was first found in upper Nansi Lake in 2014. We observed adults with mature gonads in the spawning season and recruitment of young-of-the-year juveniles since 2014, suggesting successful establishment of the population.

Taenioides cirratus was first reported in Luoma Lake in 2005 ( Ding 2010), and it has become common in the catches of local fishermen since then (local fishermen, personal observation). This species was occasionally recorded in Gaoyou and Hongze lakes in the 1980s ( Ni and Wu 2006; Lin et al. 2013). However, there were no reports of population establishment at either lake at that time. Taenioides cirratus likely increased abundance in Gaoyou Lake in the early 2000s (local fishermen, personal observation), but the abundance fluctuation data is not available. It is currently a common species in Gaoyou Lake. However, this pattern did not occur in Hongze Lake, where this species is still rare.

Occurrence of this species in Hongze and Gaoyou lakes in the 1980s may be due to either its upstream migration against the water flow of the Huai River or dispersal by water transfer of the NJWT from the Yangtze Estuary. The appearance of T. cirratus in Luoma Lake was likely induced by water transfer of the NJWT from sources either in Gaoyou Lake or the Yangtze Estuary. Invasion of this species into Nansi Lake was likely via the NJWT water diversion events in 2011 from Luoma Lake and may have been enhanced by operation of the ESNT since 2013 ( Table 1 ).

Currently, this species is still not documented as occurring in Dongping Lake.

Figures

Figure 1. The East Route of South-to-North Water Transfer Project, showing the five major lakes along the route (shadow areas) as storages, the Grand Canal as conveyance, and geographic relationships of the major rivers (i.e., the Yangtze River, the Huai River, and the Yellow River) with the route. The Nansi Lake is separated into the Lower Nansi Lake and Upper Nansi Lake by the Erji Dam. The year of the first record of the two invasive species, Taenioides cirratus and Tridentiger bifasciatus, in each of these lakes was indicated to show their invasion patterns.