Freshwater fauna in Spain in the mid-19th Century

We extracted records of freshwater fauna (mainly, but not exclusively, fish) from the geographic dictionary edited by Pascual Madoz (henceforth ?the Madoz?), which involved an exhaustive standardized survey of several descriptors of the Spanish territory in the mid-19th century. The Madoz was published between 1845 and 1850 in 16 volumes and contained information on some 70,000 Spanish population centers, rivers and topographical accidents. This work provides a rigorous national inventory of the socio-economic status of all settlements as well as their natural resources, including records of plant and animal species, both wild and domestic. Most mentions to freshwater fauna in the Madoz are reported either when describing rivers and wetlands or as a ?production? from a village, together with crops, livestock and game species. Some mentions are also associated to the heading ?terrain?, although this is much less frequent. We converted these mentions into 10,750 usable records of 39 freshwater-associated taxa from 5,472 localities. These data can be used to describe the historical distributions of several species, including emblematic ones such as Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser sturio; 21 records), European eel (Anguilla Anguilla; 2848 records), Brown trout (Salmo trutta; 3943 records), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar; 258 records) and others. This knowledge will allow assessing range and niche expansion, contraction, and shifts, and should set the basis to identify conservation baselines to guide the management of freshwater systems.

本研究从帕斯夸尔·马多斯（Pascual Madoz）编纂的《地理词典》（以下简称“马多斯词典”）中提取了淡水动物群（主要为鱼类，但不限于此）的相关记录。该词典是19世纪中期针对西班牙领土多项特征开展的全面标准化调查成果，于1845年至1850年间分16卷出版，收录了约7万个西班牙居民点、河流及其他地形地貌要素的相关信息。这部著作对全西班牙所有居民点的社会经济状况及其自然资源开展了严谨的全国性清查，涵盖野生动植物及家养动植物物种的记录。《马多斯词典》中提及的淡水动物群，大多出现在对河流与湿地的描述中，或是作为村落的“物产”与农作物、家畜及猎用物种一同被记录；此外也有少量提及被归入“地形”类目下，但此类情况占比极低。研究团队将这些提及内容整理为10750条可用记录，涵盖来自5472个地点的39类淡水相关分类单元。本数据集可用于还原多个物种的历史分布情况，其中包括诸多标志性物种，如大西洋鲟（Acipenser sturio；21条记录）、欧洲鳗鲡（Anguilla anguilla；2848条记录）、褐鳟（Salmo trutta；3943条记录）、大西洋鲑（Salmo salar；258条记录）等。依托这些数据，可评估物种种群分布范围与生态位的扩张、收缩及变迁情况，并为确立淡水生态系统管理所需的保护基线提供依据。