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Freshwater megafauna: diversity, status, and cultural importance
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Descriptif
Megafauna species play important ecologicalroles. Owing to their intrinsic characteristics such as large habitatrequirements, long lifespan, and late maturity they are particularlysusceptible to extinction. Freshwater megafauna species, i.e. freshwateranimals that can reach a body mass of 30 kg or more, are also vulnerable toanthropogenic impacts. There are intense and growing threats such asoverexploitation, dam construction, habitat degradation, pollution, andbiological invasions in diversity hotspots of freshwater megafauna includingthe Amazon, Congo, Mekong, and Ganges-Brahmaputra river basins. Consequently,half of all assessed species are considered as threatened on the IUCN Red List.Global populations of freshwater megafauna declined by 88% from 1970 to 2012.Their geographic distributions have also changed profoundly. In Europe,distribution ranges of 42% of all freshwater megafauna species have contractedby more than 40% of their historical distributions. Given that freshwatermegafauna share similar threats with overall freshwater biodiversity and often have large area requirement, they hold the potential tofunction as flagship and umbrella species. In addition, many freshwatermegafauna species have important cultural values to local communities. Hence, amegafauna-based approach could be a promising strategy to promote freshwaterbiodiversity conservation benefiting a broad range of co-occurring species.
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