2012年5月18日，本實驗室與日本國家極地研究所合作的關于野生中華鱘游泳行為的研究論文“Swimming behavior of Chinese sturgeon in natural habitat as compared to that in a deep reservoir: preliminary evidence for anthropogenic impacts”刊登在Environmental Biology of Fishes期刊上，并在SpringerLink數據庫在線發表。


Abstract: Unusually deep water due to dam construction has the potential to negatively effect endangered sturgeons, which lack a physiological mechanism to inflate their swimbladder and may be unable to remain buoyant under high pressure at depth. In a previous study, some juvenile sturgeons released in a deep (>100 m) reservoir lost buoyancy and stayed nearly motionless on the bottom. However, it is not clear whether this behavior represents a negative effect of the dam, because natural sturgeon swimming behavior is unknown. In this study, we attached multi-sensor data loggers to nine wild adult Chinese sturgeons Acipenser sinensis in an unimpounded reach of the Yangtze River, China. The depth utilization, tail beating activity, swim speed, and body inclination of these fish were monitored for 1–3 days. Fish swam up and down successively in the water column (mean depth, 9.9 m) with a cycle of 100-1,000 s during 64 % of the time on average, and stayed at depth, presumably on the riverbed, during rest periods. Tail beats were continuous (mean frequency, 0.77 Hz) throughout the records, indicating that their buoyancy was maintained. These results contrast with the previous study, suggesting that the behavior observed in the reservoir is unusual and that deep water poses a risk of losing buoyancy for sturgeons. Furthermore, all fish intensively swam (maximum speed, 3.0 ms-1) to the river surface at a mean frequency of 0.35 times per hour-a behavior that could explain why ship strikes are a serious cause of mortality in sturgeons.
摘要：大壩建設形成的異乎尋常深水環境可能對瀕危鱘類產生負面影響,因鱘類生理上鰾缺乏氣體分泌能力,以至于在高水壓環境下鰾充氣受阻而失去上浮的能力。一項前期研究表明，放流到水深大于100m環境中的幼鱘失去浮力并停留在水底幾乎一動不動。但是，目前尚不清楚大壩建設是否會對野生鱘魚帶來的負面影響，因為我們還不清楚自然環境中野生鱘魚的游泳行為。在本研究中，我們在宜昌自然河流段,將多傳感數據記錄儀安裝在9尾野生成年中華鱘(Acipenser sinensis)背部,對它們的水深利用、尾部擺動、游泳速度和身體傾斜度等行為監測了1-3天。結果顯示，在平均水深為9.9m的水層中，這9尾鱘魚在每100-1000秒周期內有平均64%的時間在水中做連續上、下游泳運動，其余時間停留在河床上。整個記錄過程中，鱘魚尾部擺動是連續的（平均頻率0.77Hz），說明魚體維持了其浮力。對比之前的研究結果，在深水水庫中觀測到的鱘魚的靜止行為是不正常的，故深水環境增加了鱘魚喪失浮力的風險。此外，受試的所有中華鱘都有以平均0.35次/小時的頻率游出水面的行為（最大速度3.0ms-1），這種行為很可能是中華鱘受船舶撞擊導致死亡的重要原因。