ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Impacts of current and future large dams on the geographic range connectivity of freshwater fish worldwide.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 450 citations in OpenAlex.
- Native and Non-Native Populations Respond Unevenly to River Barrier Removals.Global change biology · 2026Pooled it
- Global consequences of dam-induced river fragmentation on diadromous migrants: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Pooled it
- Near-term increased exposure to political risk for African power trades.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Contrasting Patterns of Genetic Isolation Among Diadromous, Landlocked, and Non-Migratory Gobiid Fish Populations.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Article
- Climate Change and Hydropower Impacts on Habitat Suitability of Endangered Schizothoracinae Fishes in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Multiple fish diversity facets in the Nu-Salween basin: Unexpected bimodal patterns, environmental drivers, threats, and conservation implications.Zoological research · 2026Article
- Biodiversity and habitat complexity buffer the destabilizing effects of anthropogenic activities on riverine fish communities.Nature communications · 2026Article
- How the Choice of Spatial Resolution Affects Freshwater Fish Species Distribution Models.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Heat Tolerance and Its Plasticity in Freshwater and Marine Fishes Reflect Exposure to Extremes and Seasonal Variation in Habitat Temperatures.Ecology letters · 2026Review
- Environment, taxonomy, and socioeconomics predict non-imperilment in freshwater fishes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Building new hydrography and virtual watersheds to conserve freshwater fisheries.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Dams threaten salmonids by triggering temperature-dependent proliferative kidney disease.Communications biology · 2026Article
- A fragmented fish community: evaluation of the present distribution and drivers of fish communities in the lower uThukela River, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Environmental biology of fishes · 2026Article
- Assessing the population structure of Plagioscion squamosissimus (Teleostei, Perciformes, Sciaenidae) from the São Francisco River, Bahia, Brazil, using body morphology and otolith shape signatures.Journal of fish biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Connectivity indices can predict population persistence in river networks: insights from a metapopulation model.Landscape ecology · 2026Article
- Delineating Diversity-Based Freshwater Bioregions by Integrating Fish and Macroinvertebrates With Species Distribution Models and Spatial Clustering.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Chromosome-level genome assembly of Decorus tungting, an endemic cyprinid from China.Scientific data · 2025Article
- From Fragmentation to Recovery: Hydropower Impacts on River Connectivity and Fish Diversity Conservation in China's Dongjiang River.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Dams contribute to water security, energy supply, and flood protection but also fragment habitats of freshwater species. Yet, a global species-level assessment of dam-induced fragmentation is lacking. Here, we assessed the degree of fragmentation of the occurrence ranges of ∼10,000 lotic fish species worldwide due to ∼40,000 existing large dams and ∼3,700 additional future large hydropower dams. Per river basin, we quantified a connectivity index (CI) for each fish species by combining its occurrence range with a high-resolution hydrography and the locations of the dams. Ranges of nondiadromous fish species were more fragmented (less connected) (CI = 73 ± 28%; mean ± SD) than ranges of diadromous species (CI = 86 ± 19%). Current levels of fragmentation were highest in the United States, Europe, South Africa, India, and China. Increases in fragmentation due to future dams were especially high in the tropics, with declines in CI of ∼20 to 40 percentage points on average across the species in the Amazon, Niger, Congo, Salween, and Mekong basins. Our assessment can guide river management at multiple scales and in various domains, including strategic hydropower planning, identification of species and basins at risk, and prioritization of restoration measures, such as dam removal and construction of fish bypasses.
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