Factors influencing the home range of freshwater fishes

Abstract

Initial investigations of home range for freshwater fish noted that it scaled allometrically, with additional studies having linked home range to variations in water body size. Here, we revisit the analysis of factors influencing freshwater fish home range sizes using an expanded dataset incorporating more recent telemetry data and a meta-analysis approach to evaluate the influence of fish length, water body size, trophic guild and latitude on the home range size of fishes in lotic and lentic systems. With the expanded data set we reaffirm that length has a significant effect on the home range size in both lentic and lotic environments, with the effect of length being more pronounced in lotic environments. Similarly, we determined water body size also significantly influences home range size and is the key determinant of home range size in both lentic and lotic environments. We also demonstrate the importance of trophic guild and latitude as determinants of home range in lentic and lotic environments. The factors influencing home range size in both environments were common (i.e. fish length, water body size, trophic guild and latitude), but varied in importance weight between the environments. The results of this study help illuminate the weight of importance of factors influencing the home range of freshwater fishes and provide useful information for conservation and environmental management planning purposes.