Aquatic food webs of the oxbow lakes in the Pantanal: A new site for fisheries guaranteed by alternated control?

Flood pulse and biotic interrelationships control the food web dynamics of river floodplain systems. The Pantanal Plain in the Paraguay River Basin (Brazil) occupies 140,000km2 of periodically flooded areas and is divided into 12 subregions with different characteristics related to the flood pulse duration, the vegetation, the type of soil, and the resources used in activities, particularly fishing. In this study, we used Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) to model three oxbow lakes in the South Pantanal Plain, where there is no fishing activity, to test the similarity of the ecosystems, to identify the keystone species and the types of food web controls, and to determine whether these environments can support moderated fishing pressure. We found that the food webs of the oxbow lakes are similar to each other because, although they depend mainly on the presence or absence of predators, flood pulses similarly homogenize the lakes. The results highlight the importance of detritus in these food we...