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The fish zonation of the Itanhaém river basin in the Atlantic Forest of southeast Brazil

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Abstract

The distribution range of fishes along an upstream–downstream gradient within a river basin is determined by the ecological requirements of each fish species. This differential pattern of distribution may suggest the occurrence of fish zones, where different functional guilds would prevail. The earliest concept of fish zonation highlighted the preferential position of several species in European rivers. Nowadays, there is a consensus that for a broad application of this concept, it is necessary to consider the division in functional groups along the downstream profile as related to reproductive, feed and population dynamics traits. However, for a number of tropical systems, such information does not exist. In this case, it is possible to use the fish family as a surrogate metric, by assuming that it fully covers common aspects of morphology, feeding, and behavior. Using this surrogate metric, we analyzed the distribution range of fish species along an elevation gradient in a typical Atlantic Forest basin in southeast Brazil. Our objective was to delimit fish zones based on the representativeness of some dominant fish families. Between 2006 and 2008, we sampled 42 sites from the estuary to the headwater creeks in elevations that varied from 3 to 783 m. The data were explored using the species (or family) occurrence, relative numerical abundance (N′), relative biomass (B′), and the importance index (IP). We applied the non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to ordinate the sampling sites using the Jaccard distance calculated on the species occurrence matrix. Data on family importance were superimposed to the NMDS to check how the distribution and the abundance of the families were correlated to the ordination. We caught 64 species distributed among 25 fish families. Based on the dominance of some families, we propose that the fish assemblage in the Itanhaém river basin can be organized in four fish zones (FZ) and three transitory zones (TZ), which replace each other along the longitudinal gradient. The marine/estuarine fishes dominated in FZ1 and TZ1. The freshwater fishes were dominated by Characidae (FZ2), Heptapteridae (FZ3), and Gymnotidae (FZ4). TZ2 was equally dominated by Characidae, Loricariidae, and Heptapteridae. The distinct assemblage composition along the FZ’s may relate to complex interactions involving seasonal patterns of variation in salinity levels (next to estuary), slope, presence of downstream barriers, and availability of food resources. We expect that the patterns observed in our study will also be presented in other coastal Atlantic Forest basins in Southeast Brazil.

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Acknowledgments

FAPESP (Processo no.05/58185-0), CNPq, and UNESP have partially funded this research. We are grateful to IBAMA (Processo no. 02027.002343/2005-59) and COTEC (Processo no. 44.158/2005) for issuing the collection licenses. We offer our thanks to Dr. Heraldo A. Britzki, Dr. Marcelo R. Britto, Dr. Osvaldo T. Oyakawa, and Dr. Ilana Fichberg for extending their help with fish identification. We also thank the biologists, MSc. André T. Silva, MSc. Alberto L. Carmassi, Dr. Ursulla P. Souza, MSc. Giulianna R. Carmassi, MSc. Henrique C. Giacomini, MSc. Paul F. C. Rosas, and the laboratory technician Carlos F. Sanches for their assistance in the field work and in the laboratory analyses. Finally, we thank Dr. Ariovaldo C. Neto and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

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    Fabio Cop Ferreira & Miguel Petrere Jr.

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Ferreira, F.C., Petrere, M. The fish zonation of the Itanhaém river basin in the Atlantic Forest of southeast Brazil. Hydrobiologia 636, 11–34 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9932-4

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