Caracterização ecológica da comunidade de peixes associados a currais de pesca e recifes no estado de Pernambuco

Abstract

The reef environments harbor a high marine biodiversity, in which we can highlight the fish. On the northern coast of the state of Pernambuco, Itamaracá Island, presents sandstone reefs parallel to the coast, and also has corrals, which is a fishing art made of wood and canvas, fixed on the marine substrate. Since these structures provide substrate for benthic fixation can attract the local ichthyofaunal. In this way, the objective of the work was to characterize the community of fish that are present in the reefs and corrals, thus verifying the potential of the corrals to add the ichthyofaunal. Three reefs and three sandstone reef areas were selected for the monthly record of the fish assemblage, composition and substrate complexity. In total, 36 transects, 50 meters long and 2 meters wide, were carried out covering a total area of 100 m2 for each transect. The species observed were classified according to the trophic level, habit of life, preferential habitats, size classes and their conservation status. A total of 3730 reef fish belonging to 24 families were observed, distributed in 45 species, 2936 of which were observed in the corral area, where the largest number of species were also recorded. In the reef area, 794 specimens and 31 fish species were visualized. Despite the differences in abundance, number of species, trophic guild and distribution of families between the two areas, found by the Man-Whitney test (p <0.05), the Hill Series found that there is no significant difference in fish diversity between the two areas. In the NMS analysis, the community of reef fish in corral areas is more influenced by the presence of sand and gravel, depth, visibility and mobile invertebrates, while the reef areas the composition of the substrate as alga turf and macroalgae acted in the mode of occupation of the fish. In relation to the trophic guilds, there was a predominance of mobile invertebrate eaters (CIM) in the corral area and herbivore (HER) expression on reefs. The complexity of the substrate obtained in the corral area was 1.9 with the standard deviation of ± 0.35 and in the reef areas with 3.05 (± 0.59). Based on the data the areas of corrals despite having low substrate complexity, the physical structures of the corral can increase the environmental complexity, thus presenting a great potential to add the local ichthyofauna.