 Whether hybridisation with the more numerous "L. bocagei" also affects its numbers is not known.The two must have achieved reproductive isolation in the past to become as disting as they are, but damming and other construction have in recent times shifted the river's currents and changed microhabitat, so that these barbels will now meet at spawning sites more often.Altogether however, damming will slow the river's flow to almost a standstill, creating conditions more favourable to the Iberian Barbel than to "L. bocagei", and the hybridisation may actually be a sign of the rarer species becoming more plentiful.