Fitzroy River floodplain fish data set

While it is widely recognised that reduced river-floodplain connectivity has contributed to the decline of biodiversity in floodplain rivers, surprisingly few studies have quantified the relationship between connectivity, pool persistence, and fish assemblage structure to the level required to generate measurable targets for management. We maximised our capacity to describe unbiased hydrology-fish relationships by sampling fish assemblages in floodplain pools with a variety of connection histories (60 sampling events) over four years (2018-2021). Our study was conducted in the lowland reaches (~lower 350 km) of a tropical wet-dry river threatened by water resource development and elevated temperatures associated with climate change, the Fitzroy River (Western Australia).

Data set includes physical and chemical data associated with water quality and within-site habitat, biological data pertaining to fish, and data pertinent to river-floodplain connectivity including spatial, temporal and hydrological data.

尽管学界已普遍认可，河流-洪泛平原连通性（river-floodplain connectivity）降低会引发洪泛平原河流的生物多样性衰退，但令人诧异的是，目前鲜有研究将连通性、深潭存续性与鱼类群落结构之间的关联量化至能够制定可量化管理目标的研究精度。本研究通过2018-2021四年间对具备不同连通历史的洪泛平原深潭开展60次采样以获取鱼类群落数据，最大化了对无偏水文-鱼类关联的描述能力。本研究的实施区域为受水资源开发及气候变化引发的气温升高威胁的热带干湿季河流——澳大利亚西部菲茨罗伊河的下游河段（约下游350公里范围）。

本数据集涵盖与水质及点位内生境相关的理化数据、鱼类相关生物数据，以及与河流-洪泛平原连通性相关的空间、时间及水文数据。