Received on 27 July 2000 Accepted on 27 September 2000 Abstract The freshwater aquatic biodiversity is depleting alarmingly due to the introduction of exotic species and other anthropogenic activities. The indiscriminate transfer of exotic fishes has brought about a wide array of problems including extirpation of indigenous species. The exotics compete with the indigenous species for food, habi...

Fish viscera have wide biotechnological potential as a source of digestive enzymes, especially proteinases. The biological diversity of fish species provides a wide array of enzymes with unique properties. Fish digestive proteolytic enzymes most commonly found include pepsin and trypsin. Those enzymes from fish viscera may have the advantages for the applications in the food industry since thei...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been shown to increase long-term temporal stability of fish communities and enhance ecosystem resilience to anthropogenic disturbance. Yet, the potential ability of MPAs to buffer effects of environmental variability at shorter time scales remains widely unknown. In the tropics, the yearly monsoon cycle is a major natural force affecting marine organisms in tr...

We analyzed the variation of fish species richness and trophic structure along an upstream-downstream gradient and identified the factors associated with the pattern observed. The fish community composition varied along a headwater-downstream gradient. Species richness and trophic structure decreased significantly with increasing altitude and increased with stream order and distance from source...

The genus Aeromonas is ubiquitous in aquatic environments encompassing a broad range of fish and human pathogens. Aeromonas strains are known for their enhanced capacity to acquire and exchange antibiotic resistance genes and therefore, are frequently targeted as indicator bacteria for monitoring antimicrobial resistance in aquatic environments. This study evaluated temporal trends in Aeromonas...

Aim Geographical variation in parasite diversity is examined among populations of fish in their original heartland and in areas where they have been introduced. The diversity in heartland and introduced populations is contrasted, and also compared with the expectations of a null model. Location Data on the parasite communities of two salmonid fish species were obtained: the rainbow trout Oncorh...

Although research on parasite biodiversity has intensified recently, there are signs that parasites remain an underestimated component of total biodiversity in many regions of the planet. To identify geographical hotspots of parasite diversity, we performed qualitative and quantitative analyses of the parasite-host associations in fishes from Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that inclu...

Patterns of fish community composition in the Mahaweli ichthyological region of Sri Lanka were examined in agricultural tributaries of the Uma-oya catchment of the upper Mahaweli River in comparison to more pristine streams in a nature reserve in the Amban-ganga catchment. The Uma-oya catchment shows characteristics commonly observed in extensive agricultural exploitation such as impaired water...

The most prominent pattern in global marine biogeography is the biodiversity peak in the Indo-Australian Archipelago. Yet the processes that underpin this pattern are still actively debated. By reconstructing global marine paleoenvironments over the past 3 million years on the basis of sediment cores, we assessed the extent to which Quaternary climate fluctuations can explain global variation i...

While there is a persistent inverse relationship between latitude and species diversity across many taxa and ecosystems, deviations from this norm offer an opportunity to understand the conditions that contribute to large-scale diversity patterns. Marine systems, in particular, provide such an opportunity, as marine diversity does not always follow a strict latitudinal gradient, perhaps because...