Conservation Actions
This species occurs in a protected area. The National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992 has established the entire Taal Lake basin as a protected area under the jurisdiction of Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and management of the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB). Research on population status is very important to assess if this species still exists in Taal Lake. Genus placement under Exyrias is uncertain (Larson and Buckle 2012). Taxonomic study is recommended because this species is placed as a species inquirenda in Exyrias (Kottelat 2013).Location Information
Exyrias volcanus is known only from its type locality in Taal Lake (formerly known as Lake Bombon) in Batangas, Philippines (Herre 1953). Taal Lake has an estimated maximum depth of 180 m, average depth of 65 m (Mutia et al. 2017), surface area of 234 km2 (Mutia 2015, ILEC 2020) and altitude of 2.5 m above sea level (Papa and Zafaralla 2011). If still extant, the extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO) would be 298 km2 and 272 km2, respectively.Geographic Range
Possibly Extinct
Philippines
Population Information
The current population status is unknown. Fisheries assessments in Taal Lake in 1996-2011 did not find this species (Mutia et al. 2018).Threats
As Taal Lake provides multiple-resource use, it is faced with various threats that impact survival of its biodiversity and habitats. These threats include overexploitation, pollution, habitat degradation and destruction, invasive alien species, proliferation of aquaculture, among others (Santos et al. 2018, Mutia et al. 2018, Mutia 2015, Papa and Safaralla 2011). Santos et al. (2018) showed how aquaculture negatively impacted the integrity of Taal Lake. This encompasses proliferation of introduced species leading to predation on or competition with native species, ongoing pollution from aquaculture feeds along with domestic wastes and unmanaged tourism on Volcano Island resulting to decrease in water quality, and expansion of aquaculture facilities causing habitat destruction and obstruction of species movement in the lake.
