Linking fisheries to land use: How anthropogenic inputs from the watershed shape fish habitat quality.

Aquatic ecosystems are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic stressors, both at local and larger scales. For instance, runoff from intensively cultivated areas leads to higher nutrient and sediment concentrations deteriorating water quality, which potentially trigger trophic state changes. Unfortunately, we have a poor understanding of the complex relationships linking water quality degradation and different ecosystem components. Here we analyze the long-term cascading effects of several anthropogenic stressors on both submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and the key traits of an exploited yellow perch (Perca flavescens, YP) population from the watershed of Lake Saint-Pierre - the largest fluvial lake of the St. Lawrence River (Québec, Canada). Lake Saint-Pierre drains one of the most impacted watersheds in Eastern Canada and had sustained a YP fishery (worth up to 10 M$ CAN/year) until the population collapsed in the mid-1990s. SAV abundance has declined since the 1980s, partially overlapping with the YP collapse. Within a structural equation modeling framework, we tested the links between changes in both SAV abundance and the YP fishery with abiotic stressors acting at both local and larger scales. Our results show that both SAV and YP declines are causally associated with anthropogenic nutrient and sediment loadings from the watershed. The decline of YP landings is also explained by a reduction in SAV abundance and YP juvenile growth, mainly caused by a sharp decrease in water transparency over the last decades. These results suggest a causal association between environmental degradation due to nutrients and sediments and different components of the trophic aquatic network. Such an integrative approach is crucial for the development of management strategies that consider cultivated lands and aquatic systems as a continuum rather than separate compartments. SAV restoration is thus a critical feature contributing to water depuration and promoting the recovery of fish populations threatened by habitat degradation.