Nelli Barseghyan
Other projects
20 Feb 2015
The Study of Reproduction Ecology of Endangered Endemic Fish Species Sevan Trout
21 Jun 2018
Testing of Experimental Methods for Restoration of Natural Population of Endemic Fish Species of Lake Sevan - Sevan Trout
The Caucasus region is one of the biodiversity hotspots prioritized for conservation (Myers et al., 2002) and Lake Sevan is the biggest freshwater ecosystem in the region. Two native endemic fish species for Lake Sevan - Sevan trout and Sevan barbel, and one endemic subspecies, Sevan scraper, are all endangered and recorded in the Red data book of Armenia as critically endangered species (corresponds to IUCN category CR A2cd) (Aghasyan and Kalashyan, 2010).
Sevan trout (Salmo ischchan, Kessler) is an economically profitable endemic fish species of Lake Sevan, which has two ecological races: winter trout (Salmo ischchan ischchan, Kessler) and bojak (Salmo ischchan danilewskii, Iakowlev) are completely eliminated, and the other two races: gegharquni (Salmo ischchan gegarkuni, Kessler) and summer trout (Salmo ischchan aestivalis, Fortunatov) have lost their economic significance and are now encountered as individuals.
Tigran, Nelli - Scientific Center of Zoology and Hydroecology. ©NAS Armenia.
To avoid extinction, artificial restocking of Sevan trout has been carried out for decades by the Ministry of Environment of Armenia and the Fund for “Restoration of Sevan trout stocks and development of aquaculture”. However, our previous studies showed no significant progress in restoration of Sevan trout stocks which comes to prove the degradation of the state of spawning rivers and lack of natural reproduction. Moreover, the efficiency of the used restocking method has not been evaluated in relation to the size of released fingerlings. The objectives of the project are: to evaluate the efficiency of both methods for restocking the wild population through the study of biology and ecology of fingerlings during riverine period of life; and to develop a long-run strategy for restoration of Sevan trout stock.
Many environmental projects are being realized in the basin of Lake Sevan but none of them are concentrated on the conservation of Sevan trout.
Header: Nelli, Scientific Center of Zoology and Hydroecology. ©NAS Armenia.