Abstract
The largest preserved areas of Atlantic Forest are located in the southeastern region of Brazil. Estuaries, mangroves, rivers and streams are home to a community of fish that is still poorly understood. The composition of fish species and their relationships with environmental conditions were used to identify homogeneous areas within a landscape of 33,000 km2. A total of 6,542 specimens, representing 124 species and 13 orders of bony fishes were collected at 102 sampling stations. Resulting scores from a canonical correspondence analysis applied to biological and environmental data were used in a cluster analysis to identify fish species with similar spatial distributions and localities with similar fish fauna and abiotic conditions. Five micro-regions were identified, with homogeneous compositions of species, allowing better planning of conservation of aquatic biodiversity. Despite a high degree of preservation, impacts due to deforestation, drainage of wetlands and overfishing were detected, as well as the introduction of 41 exotic species.
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