Cross‐Scale Anthropogenic Threats Jointly Drive Declines in China's Estuarine Fish Assemblages Over the Past Half‐Century

作者：Jun Ren, Sikai Wang, Yong Chen, Tao Zhang, Ping Zhuang, Feng Zhao · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.70566 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Marine and fisheries research、Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies、Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics

Identifying multi-scale threats in the Anthropocene to vulnerable yet crucial ecosystems can inform the development of effective conservation and restoration actions. Estuarine fish assemblages, which are vital for ecosystem functioning and serve as key indicators of ecosystem health, face a multitude of anthropogenic threats operating across local, regional, and global scales. However, due to a lack of standardized, long-term, and spatially extensive datasets, the trends in estuarine fish assemblages and their responses to multi-scale anthropogenic threats remain unclear. We construct a dataset spanning over half a century for fish assemblages across different life stages and the multi-scale anthropogenic threats they face in three major estuaries of China, aiming to identify patterns of abundance and richness, and to validate the relationships between widely recognized anthropogenic threats and changes in these patterns. The results indicate that, over the past half-century, fish assemblages in all three major estuaries in China have experienced declines in abundance or remained at persistently low levels, while richness remained relatively stable. At the local scale, increased fishing intensity in estuaries and adjacent coastal areas directly reduced adult fish abundance. Regionally, water and sediment regulation measures implemented following the construction of upstream dams and reservoirs raised freshwater input and altered sediment delivery to estuaries during the fish...