Conserving karst cavefish diversity in Southwest China

Subterranean aquatic biodiversity loss has exceeded that of surface aquatic systems, and cavefish are a predominant indicator of biodiversity loss. The karst subsurface environment and its biodiversity are generally considered to be fragile and extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances such as hydroelectric projects. Subterranean biodiversity is faced with several threats, such as: hydrostation mining, domestic wastewater etc., and protecting and managing these unique and endemic species presents several challenges of wild population survive and monitoring population dynamic. The impact of infrastructure policies on cavefish species in China is used as an example to analyse the current and potential threats to cavefish species and karst subterranean habitats in China. Any strategy employed to conserve cavefish in China should include strengthening research on cavefish, including formal descriptions of taxa and listing these species on the IUCN Red List, as well as national and local lists of species for conservation. Such knowledge can be used to establish a conservation strategy for cavefish and subsurface biodiversity. • China, has the most richness cave fishes diversity resource in the world, there are more than 140 cave fishes species distributed in southern of China, include: Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces. Because in these provinces, there are the most developed Karst landscape, and more underground river systems, so there have the most cave fishes species resource. • The cave fishes are not only the research subjects of the evolutionary biology, but also are the subjects and animal models of the human beings genetic diseases, they are helpful the biologists and doctors reveal how the gene mutaions caused some illness based on the genetic background, such as: congenital macular disease, congenital obesity etc. • In current China, the central government pay more attention to the environment and biodiversity conservation, especially to Yangtze river, and issued the law in 2021, but less consideration to Pearl river, meanwhile, because the plan of West-East Power Transmission, so many hydropower stations build in the Pearl river system, and no suffcient environment impact evaluation work for these progamms, especially on the undersuface ecosystem and biodiverisy resource. So, we hope this paper could cause more conservation efforts for the unique ecosystem and biodiversity resource in China and in the world.