Chapter 3 North Carolina Species
3.5 Freshwater Fishes 3.5.1 Introduction
The freshwater fish fauna of the southeastern United States is among the most diverse fauna in North America. There are an estimated 260 species of freshwater fish in the state, including both native and nonnative species. Aquatic habitats are one of the most imperiled because of pollution, flow alteration, habitat loss, and fragmentation of freshwater systems (Ashton et al . 2010) . Freshwater communities are likely the most threatened ecosystems in the world, making aquatic organisms important indicators of degraded ecological conditions (Leidy and Moyle 1998; Jelks et al. 2008) . Habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation resulting from anthropogenic activities can have the most significant impact to natural communities at the landscape level. Flow modifications, introduction of nonnative species, and overuse also have significant impacts at the local and regional level. During the last two decades, several assessments considered the imperilment of freshwater fish species including those found in North Carolina. Previous versions of this SWAP referred to reports published by Etnier (1997) and Warren (et al. 1997) that identified patterns of imperilment of fish by family and major habitat preference and a report by Butler (2002b) that assessed conservation priorities for fishes in the Southern Appalachian Ecoregion. More recently, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) has published an updated assessment of the conservation status of imperiled freshwater and diadromous fishes of North America (Jelks et al. 2008) . As part of the updated assessment, the AFS Endangered Species Committee (AFS-ESC) developed a map of freshwater ecoregions that represented modifications of earlier ecoregional maps used by Maxwell (et al. 1995) , Abell (et al. 2000, 2008) , and others. The AFS-ESC map for North America indicates the southeastern United States has three ecoregions with especially large numbers of imperiled fishes. North Carolina is located within two of these ecoregions. The South Atlantic ecoregion (Atlantic Complex) has 34 species considered imperiled, and the Tennessee ecoregion (Mississippi Complex) has 58 species considered imperiled. The report noted that the Tennessee River ecoregion has the greatest number of imperiled fishes in comparison with other United States ecoregions (Jelks et al. 2008) .
The AFS assessment states that approximately 39% of described fish species in North America are imperiled:
• 280 extant taxa are considered endangered. • 190 are threatened. • 230 are vulnerable.
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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