Fish fauna of Pratagi River coastal microbasin, extreme north Atlantic Forest, Rio Grande do Norte State, northeastern Brazil

Roney Paiva,Liana Mendes,Telton Ramos,Sergio Lima

doi:10.15560/10.5.968

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to inventory the ichthyofauna of the coastal Pratagi River basin, located on the east coast of the state, region with intense tourist activities. A total of 2,181 specimens were collected, from August 2011 to August 2013, using sieves, trawls, cast nets, traps and gillnets. Additionally, two species ( Centropomus sp. and Lutjanus alexandrei ) have only been recorded through underwater observations, summing 22 species and genera, 18 families and nine orders. Along the Pratagi drainage some human impacts were identified, mainly related to tourist activities, such as removal of riparian vegetation and sedimentation caused by the passage of vehicles on dunes. Species richness was lower near the most visited places and greater in the lower portion of the basin, due to the presence of estuarine and marine species. Apparently, a set of small waterfalls act as a barrier to some fish species, both upstream and downstream.

Highlights

The knowledge about the fish diversity of the northeastern Brazil coastal basins is partial, especially from the Mid-Northeastern Caatinga freshwater ecoregion (Rosa et al 2003; Abell et al 2008, Albert et al 2011)
The semiarid Caatinga biome is predominant in this region, the east coastal margin of Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte States are characterized by the Atlantic Forest (Langeani et al 2009)
Collected specimens were anesthetized with eugenol, fixed in 10% formalin, posteriorly preserved in 70% ethanol and deposited at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) fish collection (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

The knowledge about the fish diversity of the northeastern Brazil coastal basins is partial, especially from the Mid-Northeastern Caatinga freshwater ecoregion (Rosa et al 2003; Abell et al 2008, Albert et al 2011). This region includes the coastal watersheds between the rivers São Francisco and Parnaíba, covering the Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará and Piauí States (Rosa et al 2003) and is considered one of the main gaps in ichthyofaunal studies in the world (Lévêque et al 2008). According to Langeani et al (2009) urgent additional inventories shall be made on stretches of rivers that drain the northeastern Atlantic Forest, mostly impacted by urban sprawl and agricultural, industrial and aquaculture activities

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Conclusion