Fish vocation — traits

Natural watercourses have been categorised on the basis of the expected fish community. The Charter of Fish Vocations is not an Fish Charter, so it does not represent what is currently present in the regional watercourses but what was originally there. For this reason, at the heart of this study was bibliographical research and interviews with fishermen and fisherman, the data obtained from the recent monitoring was a support. It is clear that the current communities may differ, even considerably, from the expected and this mainly due to direct and/or indirect effects of human activity, but the knowledge of the expected community should be what we need to strive for, a principle on which all Biotic Indices are based.The indications given should not only help to identify in the communities currently present in watercourses the alien species, therefore originally alien to the regional territory, but also transfaunate species, i.e. species that have been transferred from one basin to another in the same region. It is recommended that the explanatory report be read and it is recalled that, in relation to the vastness and heterogeneity of the analysed territory, for the reconstruction of an expected community, it is necessary to supplement the information on the list of species (main and ancillary) provided in the Charter with knowledge of the environmental characteristics that may, depending on the cases, also exclude some of the main species, in addition to the ancillary ones. For example, depending on the order in which it belongs, a tributary can permanently host only some of the main species reported for the fish area to which it belongs, although the remaining species are in fact present in the main course in which it flows. The presence of all the species indicated is therefore not a target to be reached. In addition, it should be stressed that the Charter of Fish Vocations is a “in-coming” tool, since alerts, suggestions, updates are necessary especially as regards areas attributed through “experienced judgment”.