Fishing allochtonous ichthyofauna in the Mediterranean Vransko lake, Croatia
The Vransko lake is an oligotrophic lake that covers 3000 ha in the southern Croatia. It is connected to the Adriatic sea by 1 km long channel and by several natural underwater karstic holes. Out of 24 registered fish species, only few are autochtonous ones (Knipowitchia caucasica, Rutilus basak, Salaria fluviatilis). The other species either come from the sea (Anguilla anguilla, Atherina boyeri, Chelon labrosus, Dicentrarchs labrax, Liza aurata, L. ramada, Mugil cephalus, M. saliens, Platichthys flesus, Solea solea, Sparus aurata) or have been introduced, mostly disorganized, from the northern Croatian freshwaters since the late 1940s (Esox lucius, Carassius gibelio, Cyprinus carpio, Leuciscus cephalus, Pseudorasbora parva, Scardinius erythrophthalmus, Lepomis gibbosus, Silurus glanis, Tinca tinca). One of them (Gambusia affinis) was introduced to fight mosquito larvae. However, as only few of these species are really important for fishing in the lake, the aim of this study was to look into the significance of those species.