Fluctuating asymmetry: A tool for impact assessment on fish populations in a tropical polluted bay, Brazil

Abstract

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), which can be defined as random morphologic changes on bilateral symmetry plan of paired morphometric and meristic characters in response of environmental disturbances, is an alternative tool to traditional methods of environmental health assessment that has an interesting potential to appraise the state of adaptation of a population before that acute contaminations affect the whole community or ecosystem. This study aimed to assess the occurrence of FA in three morphometric and three meristic characters of the Corocoro grunt Orthopristis ruber (Cuvier, 1830), and compare the deviations in bilateral symmetry of this reef-associated and omnivorous in Guanabara Bay (Brazil), the venue for various outdoor aquatic sports during the 2016 Olympic Games. Five indexes of FA were tested over the six characters of 66 O. ruber, which were caught during the dry and wet seasons of 2011 and at three areas Guanabara Bay of different environmental characteristics. In addition to validate the existence of FA for O. ruber, our findings revealed significant deviations in the bilateral symmetry according to the FA indexes and fish characters. Together with the FA1 index, the number of gill rakers and the number of rays of the pectoral fin provided the best methodological approach to address the levels of FA in O. ruber as a response to environmental stressors in each region. The levels of FA in O. ruber was significantly lower in the Urca region (less impacted) than for individuals caught near the Paquetá Island and Rio-Niterói Bridge sites (more degraded). Partial Redundancy Analysis also shows that the fish characters are affected in different ways by environmental stressors, but especially in response to the levels of dissolved oxygen and, secondarily, to water transparency, and that Paquetá Island is apparently less impacted than the site near the Rio-Niterói Bridge. Our results confirm the potential of FA to be used as a tool to detect environmental effects on a reef-associated fish species in a tropical polluted bay, but further studies are necessary to validate our findings for other species and ecosystems.