Species composition, abundance and diversity of beach seine catches at Sakumono landing beach, Ghana

Abstract

Fisherman at the Sakumono landing beach, Ghana are constantly experiencing high rate of marine litter in their catches which is currently having negative effect on the composition and abundance of species within the nearshore environment. Given this, the main objective of the study was to assess the diversity and composition of catches from beach seine fishermen in Sakumono landing beach, Ghana. Samples of fish were purchased from beach seine fishermen from the nearshore waters at Sakumono near Accra (Ghana) from September, 2018 to August, 2019. From the samples, species abundance and composition were assessed. The species diversity indices including richness, evenness, dominance and diversity indices were calculated using PAST statistical tool. A total of 28 species belonging to 18 families was recorded. The dominant taxonomic families were: Carangidae and Sciaenidae. The dominant species from the study was Pteroscion peli as the most dominant (27%) while Caranx hippos, Dasyatis margarita, Trachinotus goreensis, Penaeus notialis and Sardinella aurita were the least dominant species (less than 0.1%). The species richness using Margalef index ranged from 1.14 to 2.75. The range for species evenness estimated using Pielou’s index was 0.32 - 0.67. The dominance index was estimated as 0.53 - 0.71. The range of the Shannon index was less than 3.0 which indicated that the Sakumono nearshore waters of Ghana is moderately polluted.