Long-term dynamics of fish populations in lakes of the “Russian North” National Park

Abstract

The work presents the integrated data on fish populations from 53 lakes of the “Russian North” National Park for a 120-year period. A total of 26 fish species from 7 orders and 8 families were recorded. In each of the studied reservoirs, from 1 to 25 species of fish were identified. Large lakes (Siverskoye, Zaulomskoye, Nikolskoye, Borodaevskoye, Ferapontovskoye, Blagoveshchenskoye, Tatarovskoye, and Kishemskoye) demonstrated the richest composition of fish populations. For the last 100 years, silver bream, pikeperch, sabrefish, chub, asp, zope, carp, and rudd entered the lakes from the River Sheksna and later from the Sheksna Reservoir through the canals of the Northern Dvina lock system. Because of deterioration of habitats and breeding conditions, smelt and whitefish disappeared from the water bodies at all. Inexpediency of a ban on industrial fishing in the lakes of the specially protected natural areas was substantiated.

Keywords

• ichthyofauna
• specially protected natural area
• vologda oblast