Composition and structure of reef fish communities in Paraíba State, north‐eastern Brazil

Abstract

The composition and trophic structure of reef fish communities in two natural and two artificial reefs along the coast of Paraíba State in north-eastern Brazil were investigated. A total of 114 species of fish belonging to 47 families were recorded during 120 stationary visual surveys, slightly less than half (46·55%) of which were recorded at all four surveyed localities. Most species are widely distributed on the western Atlantic coast, but several are endemic to Brazil. The greatest diversity and equitability indexes were recorded at the reefs of Sapatas and Cabeço dos Cangulos, whereas the greatest richness and abundance were found at the Queimado shipwreck. The Alvarenga shipwreck reef had the least richness, diversity and equitability. The four localities studied had very similar ichthyofaunas, especially in relation to species composition. The reefs along the Paraíba coast are considered priority conservation areas by the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, and the information generated by this study will be useful for comparison with other reefs in the region and can be directly applied to programmes seeking to protect and manage these environments.

Reef fish assemblage and zoogeographic affinities of a scarcely known region of the western equatorial Atlantic

“…The similarity matrix was calculated using the Sørensen index, and the clusters generated by the hierarchical agglomerative method using the UPGMA amalgamation strategy. The seven areas included in this study were: (1) Ceará -CE (present study; Araújo et al, 2000;Cunha et al, 2007Cunha et al, , 2008Freitas et al, 2009); (2) Maranhão -MA (Rocha & Rosa, 2001;Nunes et al, 2011a, b); (3) Risca do Zumbi RN -ZU (Feitoza, 2001); (4) Paraíba -PB (Rocha et al, 1998;Souza et al, 2007;Honório et al, 2010); (5) Abrolhos -AB (Moura et al, 2006); (6) Atol das Rocas (Rocas Atoll) -AR (Rosa & Moura, 1997;Floeter et al, 2008); and (7) Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo (St Paul's Rocks) -SPSP (Lubbock & Edwards, 1981;Feitoza et al, 2003).…”

Seasonal Dynamics of Fish Assemblages on Breakwaters and Natural Rocky Reefs in a Temperate Estuary: Consistent Assemblage Differences Driven by Sub-Adults

“…From results reported here and elsewhere [8-10,15,49], it is clear that even large well-established ARs may never completely mimic the structure of fish assemblages on natural reefs, regardless of whether they are purpose-built or provide unintended habitat (i.e. infrastructure).…”

Ictiofauna das piscinas de maré da praia do paiva: um registro anterior à exploração imobiliária

“…De modo geral, a composição taxonômica registrada nesse trabalho foi semelhante àquela encontrada em outros estudos realizados na costa Nordeste do Brasil (FERREIRA; MAIDA; SOUZA, 1995; ROSA; ROSA; ROCHA, 1997; FEITOSA; PIMENTA; ARAÚJO, 2002;CUNHA et al, 2008;CHAVES;NUNES;SAMPAIO, 2010;GODINHO;LOTUFO, 2010;HONÓRIO;RAMOS;FEITOZA, 2010), uma constatação esperada, dada a localização e a dimensão da área estudada. O número de espécies encontradas (66), levando-se em consideração a busca ativa e a amostragem por transectos, foi relativamente alto, quando comparado a outras áreas de piscinas de maré da região nordeste, as quais variam entre 29 e 56 espécies (ROSA; ROSA; ROCHA, 1997; FEITOSA; PIMENTA; ARAÚJO, 2002;CUNHA et al, 2008;CHAVES;NUNES;SAMPAIO, 2010;GODINHO;LOTUFO, 2010).…”