Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2009 number 3

Since 1916 the fish rotan (Perccottus glenii Dybowski, 1877) had widely distributed in the North-West of Eurasia. Since 1973-1976 populations of rotan are detected in the basin of the Irtysh: at the territory of Chelyabinsk Region in lake Peschanoye (Mertvoye) in the basin of the Tobol river flowing into the Irtysh. In 1975 this fish was introduced in a pond in the city of Chelyabinsk. Additional information about uncontrolled translocations of rotan was obtained. These translocations led to the appearance of new populations of rotan. Analysis of the spatial-temporal dynamics of detection sites reveals a correlation between earlier findings and highway network, while later findings correlate with the river network. In 2006, we performed special inspection of isolated and flood-land water reservoirs (n = 77) within the boundaries of the Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Omsk and Tyumen Regions. Up to present, the expansion of this unwanted invader has spread over the major part of the Tobol river basin. The northern population in the floodplain of the Tobol was detected in the vicinity of the town of Tobolsk in the former riverbed with the coordinates 58°02' northern latitude, 68°10' eastern longitude. Rotan is also known from the basins of other tributaries of the Irtysh: Ishim and Om, as well as from upper Irtysh. Exit of expansion into the middle part of the Irtysh river is possible. Rotan expansion threatens the floodplain water bodies of middle Irtysh. This fish species is a carrier of diseases, it competes for food with other fish species, actively consumes young fish of commercial species, so it is necessary to take into account the data on its distribution in the tributaries of the Irtysh when analyzing the dynamics of fish populations of the Irtysh. Biology of rotan allows assuming that this fish would affect functioning of natural focuses of dangerous helminthosis of Opisthorchis felineus.