"It is essential to know our rivers better if we are to progress as a society towards a more sustainable future."

Knowing biodiversity in order to conserve it. Imanol Miqueleiz, a 28-year-old biologist from Navarre, has researched the knowledge we have about the conservation status of fish and how we can improve their protection in the coming years. "The concept of sustainable development is closely linked to a better care of rivers, to understand what species live in them, how they relate to each other, the threats that affect them and what measures we can take to achieve a more sustainable future".

Miqueleiz has analyzed the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, an inventory that reflects the extinction risk of every species in the world according to population, distribution and threat criteria. "Recently described fish species appear on the list with a higher risk of threat than those described long ago, which has strong implications for their conservation."

One of the important conclusions of this research has been that the use of molecular tools - such as environmental DNA (eDNA) - can help in the re-evaluation process of many fish species in the Iberian Peninsula. "The use of eDNA can facilitate the monitoring of fish populations in the Iberian Peninsula and establish their distribution area in a more precise way in order to more efficiently assess their conservationstatus."

Miqueleiz insists on the need to increase fish assessment efforts and to update the information on existing species, as there are a large number of countries -such as Spain- that have assessments carried out more than a decade ago. "Fish act as indicators of the state of the rivers, offering us the opportunity to obtain very valuable information, such as water quality. In addition, fish provide us with ecosystem services, both in terms of food and leisure, sport fishing or the simple enjoyment of nature".

Imanol Miqueleiz has a degree in Biology and a PhD from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Navarra, and a Master's degree in Biodiversity and Conservation from the University of Leeds (England).

Bibliographic reference
Miqueleiz, I; Bohm, M; Ariño, AH; Miranda, R; (2020) Assessment gaps and biases in knowledge of conservation status of fishes. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems , 30 (2) pp. 225-236. DOI: 10.1002/aqc.3282.