Interactions between Fish Well-being and Water Quality: A Case Study from MoriiLake Area, Romania

This paper represents the start of a complex research on water-fish-human relationships and their implications for animal and human welfare. Among the many determinants that influence the population of a fish are size of specimens and water-quality factors. Length-weight relationship, Fulton's K condition factor and the size structure were assessed for unsexed percid species European perch, Percafluviatilis (L., 1758) (N= 485) and Eurasian ruffe, Gymnocephaluscernua (L., 1758) (N= 177) caught from Dâmboviţa River-Morii Lake area – the largest lake from Bucharest, the capital of Romania.Positive allometric growth was estimated for both fish species: TW = 0.0061 x TL3.2498 (perch) and TW = 0.0075 x TL3.1733(ruffe). Condition factor K registered values between 0.79 and 2.29 (perch), 0.86 and 1.5 (ruffe).Some physico-chemical parameters (pH, total dissolved solids, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, ammonium, electrical conductivity, total hardness) were achieved, in order to evaluate the impact of abiotic habitat conditions on fish population. The microbiological analyses of water quality were also considered, to detect the species of micromycetes that could affect both human and fish health. Thus, Alternaria spp., Aspergillus spp., Cladosporium spp., Fusarium spp., Penicillium spp. and some Saccharomyces yeast strains were identified in water samples from the studied area. On the basis of all the analyzed parameters, the water resource was found to be not within the suitable range for well-being of both percid species, fact which could be of general interest assuming that local people use to angle fish like perch and often eat their catch.To our knowledge, the study attempts for the first time to approach the interactions between biological features of some fish species inhabiting the DâmboviţaRiver upstream of MoriiLake, the quality of their environment and local people – regarded as potential consumers of their occasional catches.