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The Italian Alpine and Subalpine Trouts. Taxonomy, Evolution, and Conservation
Version 1
: Received: 21 February 2022 / Approved: 23 February 2022 / Online: 23 February 2022 (03:09:39 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Polgar, G.; Iaia, M.; Righi, T.; Volta, P. The Italian Alpine and Subalpine trouts: Taxonomy, Evolution, and Conservation. Biology 2022, 11, 576. Polgar, G.; Iaia, M.; Righi, T.; Volta, P. The Italian Alpine and Subalpine trouts: Taxonomy, Evolution, and Conservation. Biology 2022, 11, 576.
Abstract
During the last 150 years, the trout-culture industry focused on enhancing trout populations by stocking, in response to the growing anglers’ demand and the habitat degradation associated to the rapid urbanization and hydropower development. The industrialized north of Italy, home to the Italian Alpine and subalpine trout populations, is the source of most of the revenues of the national trout-culture industry. Its rapid growth and the massive introduction of non-native interfertile trouts eroded the genetic diversity of native lineages, leading to harsh confrontations between scientists, institutions, and sportfishing associations. We review here the state of art of the taxonomy and distribution of the northern Italian native trouts, presenting both scientific results and historical documentation. We think the only native trouts in this region are Salmo marmoratus, widespread in this region, plus small and fragmented populations of S. ghigii, present only in the Southwestern Alps. We strongly recommend the interruption of stocking of domesticated interfertile non-native trouts in this area, and recommend the adoption of Evolutionary Significant Units for salmonid fishery management. We further propose future research directions for a sustainable approach to the conservation and ecosystem management of the fishery resources and inland waters of northern Italy.
Keywords
Recreational fisheries fishery management; introgressive hybridization; stocking; non-native species; allochthonous species; trout fishing; trout taxonomy
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Aquatic Science
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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If anyone has published distributions that include Switzerland, please tell us :-)
Thanks!