Tropical Estuaries (tropical + estuary)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Are distributions of fishes in tropical estuaries influenced by turbidity over small spatial scales?

JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2007
R. Johnston
This study found no evidence that turbidity influenced the distribution of fishes in four tropical estuaries in north-eastern Queensland. When both more turbid and less turbid environments were immediately available to Ambassis vachelli and Leiognathus equulus there was no difference in abundance between the more and less turbid environments and no correlated change in abundance as the difference in turbidity increased. A similar outcome was evident for an additional six species of fish. Furthermore, the distribution of fishes was not correlated with the distribution of an important prey species, juvenile banana prawns Penaeus merguiensis, which exhibited a clear response to differences in turbidity level with higher abundance in the more turbid samples, however, the magnitude of the difference did not alter with changes in the magnitude of the differences in turbidity. [source]


Implications of spatial variability of fish assemblages for monitoring of Australia's tropical estuaries

AQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS, Issue 3 2010
Marcus Sheaves
Abstract 1. Although often seen as ideal targets for monitoring environmental change because of their high public profile, fish assemblages rarely appear as indicators in monitoring and reporting. 2. Published data were evaluated to develop a simple approach to quantifying the temporal consistency in assemblage structure suitable for routine monitoring and assessment. Data were examined as catch per unit effort (CPUE) and probability of encounter (PoE), and compared using three approaches with the potential to produce simple indices quantifying the patterns of similarity within an estuary over time: species richness, Bray-Curtis Similarities and a new approach, DeltaPoE. Indices derived from published data were then tested against a time series of data from two estuarine lakes with a history of fish kills. 3. Multidimensional scaling based on PoE emphasizes the temporal consistency of fish assemblages within estuaries at least as well as one based on mean CPUE while providing operational advantages. Similarities based on PoE were more sensitive to change from ,natural' assemblage structure than the simpler indices and showed comparable results with Similarities from (log) CPUE data. The one drawback to Similarities is that their complex statistical formulation often makes them less effective vehicles for reporting and communication. Where this is the case the conceptual simplicity of DeltaPoE and its performance relative to Similarities suggests it is a good candidate from which to develop monitoring indices suitable for routine reporting. 4. The performance of each of the indices were considered against the known fish kills. Species richness tracked the observed changes, an expected outcome in this case because a major impact directly removed species. Both indices based on Similarities also tracked the changes faithfully. Of the two, Similarities based on PoE seemed to react more strongly to assemblage changes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Length,weight relationships for 36 fish populations from a disturbed tropical estuary in northern Colombia

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY, Issue 5 2009
J. De la Hoz-M
Summary The study reports length,weight relationships for 36 species belonging to 20 families of the estuarine zone of the Sinú River in northern Colombia. To the best knowledge of the authors, this study presents the first study on length,weight relationships for 10 species worldwide as well as seven new maximum lengths. [source]