Lessons from the study could be applied to other rivers across the UK according to the co-author of the paper Dr Jamie Stevens, Associate Professor of Molecular Systematics at the University of Exeter. Dr Stevens says: "Traditionally, people - such as river owners and anglers - have wanted big fish swimming up their rivers. The easiest way to ensure this quickly has been to restock those rivers with exogenous fish (from outside the river system)." He added: "In the southern parts of Britain, this has normally been achieved by taking fish from some of the big Scottish rivers, bringing them down and dumping them in, rather than making improvements to the riparian [river] habitat."