What do fish do after passing through a fishway? A radio-telemetry study on patrimonial holobiotic species

Abstract

The restoration of longitudinal connectivity in rivers allows fish to colonise new habitats. However, there is a lack of information regarding the behaviour of fish when they colonise the newly opened river stretch. We used manual radiotelemetry to tracked individuals belonging to four species (trout, nase, grayling and barbel) after their release upstream of two obstacles in the Amblève River. We observed a diversity of movement behaviours and habitats used among the studied species. All the species used potential spawning habitats with distances travelled upstream reaching 2.4 km for the grayling, 7.0 km for the barbel, 16.9 km for the nase and 18.0 km for the trout, which also use tributaries and sub-tributaries of the Amblève River. Post-reproduction downstream behaviours were observed in all species, but this was made difficult by the absence of downstream migration devices at dams that forced fish to seek alternative habitats. Our study suggested that allowing fish to move upstream with fishways is beneficial as the species succeeded in reaching spawning grounds, but a holistic approach combined with the installations of devices or an opening of gates to allow post-reproduction downstream migrations would allow them to completely accomplish their biological cycle.