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fish
assemblages?
Rgis Vincius Souza Santosa,, Sandra Ramosb,c, Ana Cristina Teixeira Boneckera
a Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Biologia, Departamento de Zoologia, Laboratrio Integrado de Zooplncton e
Ictioplncton, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho,
b CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, ECOBIOTEC, Avenida General Norton de Matos, S/N,
4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal
c Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Studies, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK
ABSTR ACT
Fish larvae of four SE Brazilian estuaries were investigated to assess if the larval fish assemblages reflect the
ecological status of estuaries. All samples were collected in the same water mass to guarantee similar natural
water parameters, assuring that major differences among estuaries were related to anthropogenic pressures.
Water temperature, oxygen, pH, chlorophyll a, faecal coliforms, nutrient load and total particulate matter were
obtained at each sampling area. A pressure index was used to assess the overall anthropogenic pressures acting in
each estuary. Results showed that fish larvae were sensitive to water contamination, reducing the diversity and
especially exhibiting a high dominance of few species. Furthermore, this study reinforced the idea that the high
sensitivity of fish larvae can increase the accuracy of the environmental assessments when tackling short-time
events of hydrological controls (physical barriers and control of the freshwater input), representing an advance
1. Introduction
such as nursery grounds, migration routes and refuge areas for a variety
Alvarez et al., 2013; Nebra et al., 2014; Alves et al., 2015). Ecological
2006; Borja and Dauer, 2008; Fonseca et al., 2013). Typically, a fish
Chu, 1999; Fonseca et al., 2013). Nevertheless, the use of fishes as indicators
Whitfield, 2004).
sampling costs and sampling bias, low mobility (planktonic phase) and
sensitivity to reflect anthropogenic pressures acting on a water body
distinct larval fish assemblages, and also emphasized the potential role
Courrat et al., 2009; Dauvin and Ruellet, 2009; Ramos et al., 2015;
addition, all samples were collected in the same water mass (salinity
Also, a pressure index was calculated for each estuary based on human
the ocean with 130 km and 120 km in length, respectively; and total
area of 1765 km2 and 2160 km2, respectively. Bracu (22 57 S and 44
with 32 km in length and a total area of 190 km2, and 22 km and area of
The four estuaries are shallow (mean depth of 24 m), channel type,
waste without treatment directly into the water (INEA, 2014, 2015).
Both estuaries are used for navigation, mainly tour boats in Perequ-
Maca Estuary is used as navigation route for support vessels to oil and
Estuary still holds mangrove areas in the middle and lower sections,
although there are agricultural and fishing activities that might represent
dam, which controls the river flow reaching the So Joo Estuary.
Bracu Estuary still has natural banks with mangrove areas without
2013 and March 2015. All samples were taken in the same salinity
were performed in each estuary with a Bongo net (500 m) and the
and salinity of the water, and the dissolved oxygen concentration was
2015). Fish larvae were sorted from 144 ichthyoplankton samples and
January and March. All analyses were performed for each season separately.
Variance) with estuary as fixed factor (Sokal and Rohlf, 1995; Zar,
and to fit data to a normal distribution, fulfilling one of the ANOVA and
from ANOVA and MANOVA results were only accepted for those cases
level of significance.
A Pressure Index (PI), adapted from Aubry and Elliott (2006), assessed
Derous et al., 2007; Borja et al., 2014), and that the ecosystem-based
were classified as: no change (0), very low (1), low (2),
moderate (3), high (4) and very high change (5), and the PI resulted
of larvae per 100 m3 of water filtered. Diversity of the larval fish assemblage
by Pielou's evenness index (J) (Pielou, 1966). Fish species were assigned
species (F), marine migrants (MM; spawn at sea and regularly enter
nursery grounds) and marine stragglers (MS; spawn at sea and enter
statistic > 0.5 (Clarke and Warwick, 1994). The tests were based on a
3. Results
season in the four estuaries (Table 1), although mean seasonal precipitation
during both rainy and dry seasons. MANOVA results showed some
during the rainy season (Table 1). During the dry season, Perequ-Au
oxygen (Wilks' lambda = 0.40, P < 0.05). During the rainy season,
rainy: Wilks' lambda =0.05, P < 0.01), with Maca and Perequ-Au
estuaries exhibiting lower water quality than Bracu and So Joo estuaries.
(Table 2).
and Bracu estuaries were the least impacted systems, classified as low
and very low impacted, respectively (Table 3). Maca Estuary suffers
recreation, sewage pollution and dredging were the most severe pressures
Estuary were the percentage of land for agricultural use and the
The larval fish assemblages varied significantly among the four estuaries
F= 13.07, P < 0.001; rainy: F= 8.58, P < 0.001), but also the
291 306 larvae 100 m3 during the dry season, and 2791 3901
larvae 100 m3 in the rainy period (Table 4). Such high abundances
J =0.5 0.3, rainy: J= 0.3 0.3). During the dry season, Maca
sides of the plots, while Bracu and So Joo samples were dispersed in
the larval fish assemblages differed among the four estuaries, during the
dry (R = 0.6, P < 0.01) and rainy seasons (R = 0.5, P < 0.01).
and the other estuaries. During the dry period, Maca assemblages
hand, So Joo and Bracu samples were not clearly separated from
each other (R < 0.5, P < 0.01), presenting similar larval fish assemblages,
data). The majority of the species collected in the four estuaries were
AN, ES, MM MS (Fig. 3). In dry surveys, AN was the main group in So
Joo, Bracu and Perequ-Au estuaries, which reaching 47%, 54% and
79% of the total larvae captured in each estuary, respectively (Fig. 3A).
that represented 53% of the total larvae (Fig. 3A). In rainy surveys, AN
was the most abundant group in the four estuaries, reaching 36%, 68%,
80% and 98% of the total catch in Maca, So Joo, Bracu and Perequ-
(AM and F), but did not differ during the rainy period (F = 1.30,
estuaries did not vary significantly during the dry season (R = 0.2,
samples of the four estuaries were not separated by the nMDS of the dry
and rainy seasons were performed separately. During the dry season
(Fig. 5A), the first CCA axis (CCA1) was negatively correlated with
temperature and positively correlated with TPM, ammonia and PI
(Table 5). And the second CCA axis (CCA2) was negatively correlated
their estuarine origin, with the four estuaries discriminated along the
two CCA axes. Bracu and Perequ-Au samples clustered on the left
side of CCA1 associated with high water temperature and lower nutrient
and Maca samples were positively correlated with TPM and ammonia
(Fig. 5A).
CCA analysis of the rainy season (Fig. 5B) showed that the first CCA
while the second CCA axis (CCA2) was positively correlated with nutrient
with high water temperature and dissolved oxygen (Fig. 5B). Bracu,
nutrient load and PI and separated from the less contaminated So Joo
4. Discussion
One of the most critical phases in fish life cycle is the larval stage
influences the water residence time and dictates the time over which
the fish are exposed to any stressors (Elliott and Whitfield, 2011).
However, in the present study, the descriptors associated with the larval
the systems than by their degree of connectivity with the ocean (i.e. if
they flow directly into the open sea or into large coastal bays). Differences
been the reason for the lower oxygen detected in Maca dry samples,
since high faecal coliforms coincided with high nutrient load and TPM
nutrient load observed in this study. In this case, the local pressure level
Considering this, the large water abstraction and flow changes observed
the other hand, the seawater intrusion may also have favored the migration
of several marine species, which may have been the reason for
Harrison and Whitfield, 2004; Franco et al., 2006; Rochette et al., 2010;
Ramos et al., 2012; Fonseca et al., 2013). In this study, the results
1996; Acha et al., 1999; Simionato et al., 2008; Braverman et al., 2009)
and eggs and larvae enter in the estuary associated with the intrusion of
salt water (Sinque and Muelbert, 1997; Elliott and Hemingway, 2002).
In this way, the river discharges may regulate croaker estuarine recruitment
1986). Thus, the absence of physical barriers interfering with fish migratory
Estuary during both seasons could have been a result of the influence of
observed in Maca rainy samples could have been a result of the influence
Central Water SACW (Acha et al., 2004; Braga and Niencheski, 2006).
The SACW intrusion over the shelf is more frequent during the rainy
Castro et al., 2006a, 2006b; Calado et al., 2010; Campos et al., 2013;
Macedo-Soares et al., 2014), and its effect in the biota and seawater
properties has been observed along the Brazilian coast, mainly between
Cape So Tom (22S) and Cape Frio (23S) (e.g. Macedo-Soares et al.,
2014; Moser et al., 2014; Suzuki et al., 2015). This is other example of
this study showed the TW/SACW effect on the estuarine larval fish
5. Conclusions
The present study showed that fish larvae were sensitive to water
migratory fish routes. Thus, this study reinforced the idea that the high