Creating new littoral zones in a shallow lake to forward-restore an aquatic food web

Freshwater fish communities typically thrive in heterogenous ecosystems that offer various abiotic conditions. However, human impact increasingly leads to loss of this natural heterogeneity and its associated rich fish communities. To reverse this trend, we need guidelines on how to effectively restore or recreate habitats for multiple fish species. Lake Markermeer in the Netherlands is a human-created 70,000-ha lake with a uniform 4 m-water depth, steep shorelines, high wind-induced turbidity, and a declining fish community. In 2016, a forward-looking restoration project newly created a 1000-ha five-island archipelago in this degrading lake, which offered new sheltered shallow waters and deep sand excavations to the fish community. In 2020, we assessed how omnivorous and piscivorous fish species used these new habitats by tracking 78 adult fish of five key species across local and lake scales. We monitored spring arrival of adult fish and assessed local macro-invertebrate and young-of-...淡水鱼类群落通常在具备多样非生物环境条件的异质性生态系统中繁盛生长。然而，人类活动的影响正日益导致这类自然异质性的丧失，以及与之相伴的丰富鱼类群落的消亡。为扭转这一趋势，我们亟需制定可有效修复或重建多鱼种栖息生境的指导方案。荷兰马尔克迈尔湖（Lake Markermeer）是一处人工营建的7万公顷湖泊，其水深恒定为4米，岸线陡峭，受风力作用导致水体浊度较高，且鱼类群落呈衰退趋势。2016年，一项具有前瞻性的修复工程在这片逐步退化的湖泊中新建了一处占地1000公顷的五岛群岛生境，为鱼类群落提供了全新的遮蔽浅水区与深挖沙质区域。2020年，我们通过在局域与湖泊全域两个尺度下追踪5个关键物种共计78条成年个体，评估了杂食性与食鱼性鱼类对这些新生境的利用情况。我们监测了成年鱼类的春季抵达情况，并对当地大型无脊椎动物以及当年生幼鱼（young-of-...）开展了评估。