Mexican native trouts: A review of their history and current systematic and conservation status

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mexican native trouts

T2 - A review of their history and current systematic and conservation status

AU - Hendrickson, Dean A.

AU - Pérez, Héctor Espinosa

AU - Findley, Lloyd T.

AU - Forbes, William

AU - Tomelleri, Joseph R.

AU - Mayden, Richard L.

AU - Nielsen, Jennifer L.

AU - Jensen, Buddy

AU - Campos, Gorgonio Ruiz

AU - Romero, Alejandro Varela

AU - van der Heiden, Albert

AU - Camarena, Faustino

AU - García de León, Francisco J.

N1 - Funding Information: Funds for study of Baja California rainbow were provided by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecno-logía de Mexico (CONACyT grants: PCECCNA-050389, P22OCCOR-892393, 0340-N9107, and 431100-5-1993PN), Dirección General de Investi-gación y Superación Acad émica, Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP; grants: C-88-01-081 and C-89-01-185), and Comisión Nacional para el Conoci-miento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO; grant: FB667/S087/99). Funding for travel to collect mainland streams was provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Memorial Museum at University of Texas at Austin, Centro de Investigación en Alimenta-ción y Desarrollo, A.C. – Hermosillo, CONABIO project X011 “Vertebrados de la Región de Norogachi, Alta Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua” granted to Celia López, and personal funds of Tomelleri, Hendrickson, Findley and Espinosa Pérez. Anonymous reviewers improved the manuscript. Funding Information: Elsewhere, few native Mexican trouts live in habitats that afford them demonstrable protection, though increased protection is proposed for some areas. The Nature Conservancy Parks in Peril Program prepared a pre-investment analysis for the U.S. Agency for International Development (Dedina et al., 1998) that chronicled various conservation initiatives in the Sierra Madre Occidental. That report recommended the establishment of a ríos Ajos-Bavispe National Forest and Wildlife Refuge in the upper Río Yaqui basin in northeastern Sonora as an “anchor” site for their conservation activities. The 184,770 ha refuge encompasses several “sky island” habitats, including Sierra El Tigre and Sierra Huachinera, with at least the latter potentially including native trout habitats. The few existing protected areas in our study area include the small Cascada de Basaseachi National Park, northwest of Chihuahua City in the upper Río Mayo (Río Candameña) basin, established for its natural wonder of one of the highest waterfalls in the world. Proposed protected areas include Sierra San Luis, a “sky-island” site in northeastern Sonora; Mesa del Campanero-Arroyo el Reparo, an ecological transition zone in southeastern Sonora; Barrancas del Cobre-Sinforosa Canyon Biosphere Reserve, in the upper Río Fuerte drainage; and Las Bufas, a high-elevation old-growth forest in western Durango. Native trouts occur, or are likely to occur, in Basaseachi, Barrancas de Cobre-Sinoforosa and Las Bufas, and habitat for them may exist in the other reserves, but trout habitat was not among the reason for protected status proposals for any of these cases. Recently, however, Mexico’s federal Commission for Biodiversity (CONABIO) published its list of priority hydrologic regions for biodiversity conservation (Arriaga Cabrera et al., 2000). Included here are a number of large regions that are clearly relevant for native trout conservation: 16 (Río Yaqui – Cascada Basaseachi), 17 (Río Mayo), 18 (Upper Río Fuerte), 20 (Upper ríos Culicán and Humaya), 21 (Upper ríos San Lorenzo-Piaxtla), 22 (Río Baluarte), 39 (Upper Río Conchos). Most of these regions with native trouts score high on many factors used to rank their priorities for conservation-related programs. This document is designed to serve as a management and conservation planning tool for government at all levels in México, and is definitely being used by at least CONABIO to determine the focus of funding for biodiversity inventories and research. Our own work was in part supported by CONABIO (see Acknowledgments) under this prioritization scheme. Similarly, at an international level, areas 61 and 62 of the World Wildlife Fund’s recent publication on conservation priority for freshwater ecoregions of North America includes all mainland basins harboring native Mexican trouts in priority class 2 (of 5, with 1 highest priority) (Abell et al., 2000). So, although existing and proposed protected areas appear unlikely to contribute in significant ways to native trout conservation, the relevant high-level planning needed to prioritize conservation actions is now in place and being implemented.

PY - 2002

Y1 - 2002

KW - Conservation

KW - History

KW - Mexico

KW - Native trouts

KW - Oncorhynchus

KW - Systematics

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/12444280663

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/12444280663#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1023/A:1025062415188

DO - 10.1023/A:1025062415188

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:12444280663

SN - 0960-3166

VL - 12

SP - 273

EP - 316

JO - Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries

JF - Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries

IS - 2-3

ER -