Foreword


Baikal is unique among the Great Lakes of the world in that there is fish life from its surface to a depth of over 1600 meters, its greatest depth. In contrast, the other deep rift valley lakes in Africa are permanently anoxic below depths of about 100 to a little over 200 meters. The shallow water fishes of Baikal are very similar to those of surrounding water bodies. What makes Baikal unique is its diverse assemblage of sculpins (Cottoidei), nearly all of which are in deep water and endemic. Baikal’s great habitable depth range, combined with its great age, make it unique natural laboratory for the study of adaptation to deepwater conditions.
The present ichthyofauna of Lake Baikal includes 61 species and subspecies of fishes belonging to 32 genera and 15 families. This constitutes about 2.2% of the total number of animal species in the lake. There are 55 native fishes and six species have been introduced. One species reported earlier for northern Baikal, Salvelinus alpinus erythrinus Georgy, is now extinct.
The introduced species include three ostariophysans: two Cyprinidae and one Siluridae. The silurid is a new family for Baikal. The other three species include Perccottus glenii Dyb. (Eleotrididae), which was accidentally brought to the basin of Baikal during the introduction of carp (Cyprinus carpio haematopterus) (Skryabin, 1988), and two white-fish species, Coregonous peled (Gm.) and Coregonus albula (L.) that came from facilities breeding omul (Coregonus autumnalis migratorius (Georgi). These species should be regarded as biological pollution of the lake. Because the literature on their ecology is scanty and the author’s data are absent, these species are given in the list of fishes but are not considered any further. This work treats only the 55 indigenous species of the lake.

 

Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. General characterization of Baikal fish fauna
2. Habitats available to fishes in coastal and deep waters of Baikal
3. Digestive tract and diet of cottoid fishes
4. Growth and reproduction of cottoid fishes
5. Physiological adaptations of cottoid fishes to hydrostatic pressure
6. Visual system of the cottoid fish of Lake Baikal
7. Electrophoretic spectra of hemoglobin of the Cottoidei
8. Structural types and evolutionary transformations of the lateral line system in Baikal cottoid fish
9. Karyotypes of Lake Baikal cottoids
10. Otolith structure in ecologically different species of Baikal Cottoidei
11. Adaptation of Baikal cottoid fishes to life in the mid-water of Baikal
12. Resources of cottoid fishes and their role in the trophic system of the lake
13. Systematic of cottoid fishes
14. Phylogeny of Baikal Cottoidei
15. Speciation of cottoid fishes in Lake Baikal
Historical review
Conditions in which the flora and fauna of Lake Baikal were forming
Conclusion
References
Taxonomic index

 

Acknowledgements


I would like to express my deep gratitude to my editors the Russian editor Anatoly P. Andriashev and the American
editor John A. Janssen for their kind assistance and valuable advice. I would like to thank my colleagues and co
authors, with whom I have cooperated in expeditions to Lake Baikal for 25 years. I keep fond memories of those who
passed away: my first teacher E. Koryakov, husband G. Sidelev, Director of the Limnological Institute, Siberian
Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, G. Galazii who invited me to work on Baikal, ichthyologists N. Smirnov,
I. Shirobokov, S. Kanitsky, S. Shalashov, I. Shumilov, V. Pastukhov, G. Skryabin, V. Moskalenko, B. Moskalenko, Z.
Krasyukova, captain V. Sivolonsky, divers N. Reznikov and V. Romanov. My thanks are due to my Russian friends and
colleagues who now work in Russia and other countries: E. Karabanov, T. Strizhova, V. Parfenova, T. Zemskaya, M.
Maslova, T. Sitnikova, N. Melnik, N. Bondarenko, O. Timoshkin, V. Fialkov, A. Meshcheryakova, L. Gorbunova, O.
Smirnova, N. Smirnova, V. Smirnov, T. Kozlova, N. Guselnikova, P. Anoshko, A. Novitsky, S. Kostornov, V. Nagorny,
V. Aleksandrov, V. Govardovsky, L. Zuyeva, V. Ostroumov, I. Mekhanikova, N. Ananyeva, N. Orlov, E. Dorofeyeva,
V. Prirodina, A. Neyelov. I am thankful to curator of collections of the Zoological Institute, RAS, G. Volkova for her
assistance in the work on fish collection. I am deeply obliged to my foreign colleagues J. Janssen, A. Goto, J. Smith,
A. Wong, I. Kornfield, M. Yabe, M. Nishida, H. Morino, R. Brauer, J. Bowmaker, M. Munehara. I would like to
express my deep gratitude to Sergei Glushchenko who made photographs of fishes in aquarium in natural conditions
under water. I greatly obliged to M. Zharenkov, E. Egorova, E. Nikolskaya, and I Khanayev for providing drawings of
fishes for the systematic part of my book. I am thankful to my colleagues T. Platonova, N. Bogutskaya, and N.
Abramson who helped me to translate the text of the monograph from Russian into English. I appreciate the assistance
of R. Khalikov who prepared electronic version of my drawings and helped in learning computer programs.
I would like to thank all participants of crews of research vessels of the Limnological Institute of the Siberian
Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and captain O. Kalinin for the excellent deep water trawling work on
Lake Baikal and catching of abyssal fish. I also thank diver V. Votyakov who helped in catching coastal fish species.
My sincere thanks go to pilots of research submarine ìPiscesî V. Kuzin and O. Zolotov for conducting deep water
submersions on Lake Baikal. I am greatly obliged to sponsors of the book A. Goto and D. Williams who covered the
costs of conducting expeditions to Lake Baikal and preparing the book for print.

Valentina G. Sideleva