Fish species inventory of Yasuní National Park, Ecuador

Despite limited access and rather deficient sampling in many lowland areas
of eastern Ecuador, scientists have been able to demonstrate that this
specific region of Amazonia houses extraordinarily high concentrations of
species within several taxa – terrestrial and aquatic, plant and animal,
vertebrate and invertebrate. In this work, we developed an updated list of
the ichthyofauna of the Yasuní National Park (YNP) based on an extensive
literature review and databases of the most representative ichthyological
collections from Ecuador. Our results yielded 457 species of freshwater
fishes distributed in 45 families and 13 orders. This number substantially
exceeded previous fish lists from YNP and accounts for a considerable
proportion of species inhabiting the Napo River basin as well as the
entire Amazon River basin. The occurrence of far more species within this
limited geographic space than have been previously reported, the services
these species provide to humans, and the absence of alien species,
thoroughly justifies the greater efforts and investment that should be
allocated to the protection and management of western Amazonian lands and
waters.