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DISTRIBUTION OF ENDEMIC CRUSTACEANS FROM THE LAKE BAIKAL TO THE YENISEI RIVER

А. В. Андрианова

Abstract

Yenisei River is the main Siberian river, it is one of the seven largest rivers in the world and it is the most high-water river in Russia. It is known that the emergence of large hydraulic structures causes a prolonged, and sometimes irreversible, destabilization of aquatic ecosystems. The construction of Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station (HPS) caused global changes in hydrological, hydrochemical and hydrobiological regimes in the Yenisei River. The Yenisei River in the downstream of the HPS does not freeze in winter over 100-300 km from the dam. Hydropower engineering has caused global changes in Yenisei?s zoobenthos, especially in the HPS downstream. The stoneflies and blackflies have almost disappeared from the benthic fauna, the density and number of caddisflies and mayflies species have significantly decreased. Quantitative characteristics of zoobenthos in the area from the dam to the Angara?s estuary have greatly increased: quantity ? by more than 2 times, biomass ? by 5 times. The growth of indicators is determined, firstly, by the spread of Gammaridae from Lake Baikal through the Angara river upstream of the Yenisei, while their proportion in the total zoobenthos biomass increased by 10 times. This work is devoted to the spatial dynamics of Baikal endemic amphipods in the Yenisei, which spread far beyond the Baikal not only downstream, but also upstream. The results of expedition hydrobiological studies, conducted in 2015-2016 in several zones of the Yenisei River from its head to the mouth, are presented. Throughout the river, Gmelinoides fasciatus quantitatively dominated among the Gammaridae, Philolimnogammarus viridis took the second place. Only in the lower reaches and in the delta of the Yenisei the leading positions were transferred to Pontoporeia affinis - a representative of the estuary-relic complex of organisms. Baikal endemics actively populated the Upper Yenisei section below the Sayano-Shushensky hydroelectric power station, especially in the areas of massive macrophyte distribution. There is a divergence of ecological niches in G. fasciatus and Ph. viridis in the Yenisei: the dominant prefers silty sand-and-shingle biotopes with a calm speed rate; the subdominant tends to prefer stony-pebble bottom washed by a rapid current. Over the past 15 years, the density and proportion of crustaceans in the zoobenthos have increased in the Angara - Podkamennaya Tunguska section.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/3.1/s12.027

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