Salvelinus Umbla.

Species description.

Salmo Umbla or lake char is a species that inhabits cold deepwater lakes in the alpines. The species has a greenish brown colour with pink reddish spots and a white to reddish orange belly and orange fins with a white margin. With a maximum of 90cm they become quite large although most fish become 40-50cm. this species appears to have 2 different survival strategies with some individuals staying small (these fish are sometimes known as black char but they are the same species). They feed on crustacean’s insects and benthic fauna, sometimes larger fish become piscivores. Spawning takes place between October and Januari and happens on slopes with pebbles and stone between a dept of 30 to 120m or near stream mouths.

Behavior.

Salvelinus Umbla are found in groups except for the large piscivore fish. Most of the year this species stays in the deeper parts of the lakes it inhabits but during hatches of mayfly’s and other insects they can be found near the surface.

History.

Throughout history this species was seen as the same Salvelinus Alpinus. And still a lot of people don’t know that the split between the 2 species has been made. This means that in a lot of its native range it is still found under this name. Artic char are found circumpolar and mostly live anadromous they are not found in the alps. The species found in the alps are Salvelinus Umbla (lake char).

During the period of 1950 to 1980 lake char populations crashed and in some lakes they even went extinct. This mostly happened because of eutrophication where nutrients in the lakes accumulate which increases microorganism growth. This may deplete the water of oxygen and lake char are very vulnerable for low oxygen levels. Luckily most populations are gradually recovering.

Threats.

The main threats for this species are pollution and increasing water temperatures which lead to less oxygen in the water.

Distribution.

The native range of the lake char are the alpine lakes in Austria, France Germany, Italy and Switzerland.