Abstract
The Chinese sleeper (Perccottus glenii) has invaded European freshwaters, and we present evidence of its first documented occurrence in the Elbe River basin in Czechia. The individual fish was caught by a fisherman and posted on social media. After immediately contacting the person in question, we obtained a live fish from him. The Chinese sleeper appears to have been present in interconnected ponds and streams for ten years and may have spread over a larger area. We recommend that eradication measures be implemented to prevent further spread.
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23 June 2023
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-023-10043-9
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Acknowledgements
We thank Roman for reporting this important record on the Facebook group and raising awareness of this threat to biodiversity.
Funding
The collection of data resulting in this manuscript has been supported by the programme of Regional Cooperation of the Czech Academy of Sciences (R200962201) and the Research Programme Strategy AV21 Water for life for valuable support. LK, PK and CRV were supported by IRP FAPPZ, ČZU No. MŠMT 604670901 and in part by the institutional grant SGS conducted at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague under No. SV23-11-21260.
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MŠ contributed to conceptualization, writing—original draft preparation, reviewing and editing, and funding acquisition. OD contributed to writing—original draft preparation, and visualization. KT contributed to data curation, and writing—original draft preparation. PK contributed to sequencing, data curation, reviewing and editing. CV contributed to sequencing, data curation, reviewing and editing. LK contributed to conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, reviewing and editing, and funding acquisition.
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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The field sampling methods and experimental protocols used in this study were performed by the guidelines and permission from the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic (OZPZ/2022/IN/1).
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Communicated by Lorena Silva Nascimento.
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Statement of Significance The Chinese sleeper has invaded many European countries in the last 50 years and is expected to invade western Europe because of the favourable conditions for its establishment. This finding indicates that it could spread in the Elbe River Basin, which could have serious impacts on floodplain and wetland ecosystems. To prevent this scenario, eradication measures should be implemented.
In the original publication of the article, the author would like to correct the affiliation from “Department of Zoology and Fisheries, Czech University of Agriculture in Prague, 165 21 Prague 6-Suchdol, Czech Republic” to “Department of Zoology and Fisheries, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, 165 21 Prague 6-Suchdol, Czech Republic”.
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Šmejkal, M., Dočkal, O., Thomas, K. et al. First record of highly invasive Chinese sleeper Perccottus glenii Dybowski, 1877 (Perciformes: Odontobutidae) in the Elbe River Basin, Czechia. Aquat Ecol 58, 125–130 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-023-10036-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-023-10036-8