Fish Community Structure, Diversity, and Their Environmental Correlates in Two Arid-Region Lakes of Northwest China: Bosten Lake and Taitema Lake.
4 affiliations
- 1College of Life Science and Technology, Tarim University, Alar 843300, China.
- 2State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Protection and Utilization of Biological Resources in Tarim Basin, Xinjiang Production and Construction Crops and Ministry of Science and Technology, Alar 843300, China.
- 3Tarim Rare Fish Research Center, Aral 843300, China.
- 4College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
Abstract
Bosten Lake and Taitema Lake are important inland lakes in arid Northwest China, but recent fish-assemblage variation in these systems remains poorly resolved. We surveyed fish communities at 10 sites in Bosten Lake and four sites in Taitema Lake from 2023 to 2025 using standardized conventional capture methods. Across the three years, 20 species from 7 orders and 12 families were recorded in Bosten Lake and 12 species from 6 orders and 9 families in Taitema Lake; Cyprinidae was the most species-rich family in both lakes. The cumulative observed species pool and effort-standardized richness were higher in Bosten Lake, but year-specific site-level richness contrasts were not significant after Holm adjustment. Community composition differed between lakes after adjustment for year using exact whole-site permutations (Bray-Curtis PERMANOVA: pseudo-F1,38 = 37.92, partial R² = 0.499, p = 0.0010), although multivariate dispersion also differed (PERMDISP: F = 5.46, p = 0.030). Site-restricted PERMANOVA detected year effects in Bosten Lake (pseudo-F2,18 = 29.37, partial R² = 0.765, p < 0.001) and Taitema Lake (pseudo-F2,6 = 156.36, partial R² = 0.981, exact p = 0.0046). Bosten Lake had higher Margalef richness (Taitema minus Bosten: -0.818, 95% CI -1.451 to -0.185, p = 0.016) and Pielou evenness (-0.056, 95% CI -0.105 to -0.008, p = 0.027), whereas Shannon-Wiener diversity did not differ detectably between lakes (-0.169, 95% CI -0.673 to 0.335, p = 0.478). After controlling for site and year, no diversity-environment correlation remained significant after false-discovery-rate correction, and the partial RDA test of within-site temporal environmental-community covariation was nonsignificant (pseudo-F2,24 = 1.285, partial R² = 0.097, p = 0.1754). Thus, the study documents clear spatial separation between lakes and interannual variation within lakes, but does not identify the retained environmental variables as statistically robust drivers of those patterns.
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BibTeX
@article{zhang2026fish,
title = {{Fish Community Structure, Diversity, and Their Environmental Correlates in Two Arid-Region Lakes of Northwest China: Bosten Lake and Taitema Lake.}},
author = {Yuqing Zhang and Jingru Yang and Wenrui Jiang and Liang Wu and Hongyu Ma and Jing Song and Weimin Wang and Jie Wei and Zhulan Nie},
journal = {Animals : an open access journal from MDPI},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/ani16193149},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42883118},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Fish Community Structure, Diversity, and Their Environmental Correlates in Two Arid-Region Lakes of Northwest China: Bosten Lake and Taitema Lake.
AU - Yuqing Zhang
AU - Jingru Yang
AU - Wenrui Jiang
AU - Liang Wu
AU - Hongyu Ma
AU - Jing Song
AU - Weimin Wang
AU - Jie Wei
AU - Zhulan Nie
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
DO - 10.3390/ani16193149
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42883118
AB - Bosten Lake and Taitema Lake are important inland lakes in arid Northwest China, but recent fish-assemblage variation in these systems remains poorly resolved. We surveyed fish communities at 10 sites in Bosten Lake and four sites in Taitema Lake from 2023 to 2025 using standardized conventional capture methods. Across the three years, 20 species from 7 orders and 12 families were recorded in Bosten Lake and 12 species from 6 orders and 9 families in Taitema Lake; Cyprinidae was the most species-rich family in both lakes. The cumulative observed species pool and effort-standardized richness were higher in Bosten Lake, but year-specific site-level richness contrasts were not significant after Holm adjustment. Community composition differed between lakes after adjustment for year using exact whole-site permutations (Bray-Curtis PERMANOVA: pseudo-F1,38 = 37.92, partial R² = 0.499, p = 0.0010), although multivariate dispersion also differed (PERMDISP: F = 5.46, p = 0.030). Site-restricted PERMANOVA detected year effects in Bosten Lake (pseudo-F2,18 = 29.37, partial R² = 0.765, p < 0.001) and Taitema Lake (pseudo-F2,6 = 156.36, partial R² = 0.981, exact p = 0.0046). Bosten Lake had higher Margalef richness (Taitema minus Bosten: -0.818, 95% CI -1.451 to -0.185, p = 0.016) and Pielou evenness (-0.056, 95% CI -0.105 to -0.008, p = 0.027), whereas Shannon-Wiener diversity did not differ detectably between lakes (-0.169, 95% CI -0.673 to 0.335, p = 0.478). After controlling for site and year, no diversity-environment correlation remained significant after false-discovery-rate correction, and the partial RDA test of within-site temporal environmental-community covariation was nonsignificant (pseudo-F2,24 = 1.285, partial R² = 0.097, p = 0.1754). Thus, the study documents clear spatial separation between lakes and interannual variation within lakes, but does not identify the retained environmental variables as statistically robust drivers of those patterns.
SN - 2076-2615
ER -