Millions of people around the world depend on highly
productive floodplain rivers for food and recreational
fishing. The SÃ Pds. o Francisco River, a river drainage
southeast of the Amazon River, has a major fisheries on
migratory fishes that crashed in the 1990s. Many believe that
the fisheries collapse was due to a lack of floods. However,
the dependence of SÃ Pds. o Francisco River migratory
fishes on floods is poorly understood. In this book, we
present scientific-based data to aid in understanding the
life history of migratory fishes, particularly in relation to
floods. We radio-tracked two species to characterize their
migrations and spawning. We also monitored radio-tagged fish
movements to test the hypothesis that the cool hypolimnetic
discharge from Três Marias Dam blocked their
upriver migration. Further, we used ichthyoplankton sampling
of fishes, and hydrological, and economic data to develop a
conceptual model for supplemental water releases from the
Três Marias Reservoir to restore successful
spawning and the downstream fisheries. The contents of this
book will be of interest to fish biologist, fisheries
managers, and graduate students.
