Event Abstract Back to Event Lake size and fish diversity in southern Brazil coastal lagoons Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues1* and David Da Motta Marques1 1 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL, Brazil The coastal plain of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil, presents a series of shallow lagoons with diverse size and morphology. The objective of this study is to determine whether the size of the lagoon is an effective factor for structuring fish diversity. In this regard, nine lagoons with distinct areas were sampled: three with an area up to 40 hectares, three with area between 40 and 80 hectares, and three with an area of over 80 hectares. Each lagoon was sampled once on the littoral and pelagic zones. At each point, fish were captured through a set of gill nets with different mesh sizes. Captured specimens were identified, quantified and evaluated for weight and length. A total of 24 fish species belonging to 10 families was obtained, with Characidae presenting the highest species richness. Cyanocharax alburnus was the only species that occurred in all lagoons. Cyphocharax voga, Astyanax eigenmmaniorum, Oligosarcus jenynsii and O. robustus were also frequent species, present in most of the sampled lagoons. Lycengraulis grossidens was captured in just two lagoons with increased conductivity. The community structure showed the highest species richness in lakes with an area over 40 ha, however the highest mean diversity values were observed in ponds up to 40 ha. Cluster Analysis yielded the formation of two groups: a group formed by just one lagoon and a second one cluster grouping all the other lagoons. This pattern may be associated with the presence of Lycengraulis grossidens as a dominant species in this lagoon clustered apart. The results indicate that lagoons with up to 40 ha present greater homogeneity on the species composition and higher average values of diversity; while intermediate ponds (between 40 and 80 ha) have lower average diversity for the fish fauna due to increased heterogeneity in species abundance. Keywords: Coastal lagoons, Southern Brazil, Fish diversity, Lake size, heterogeneity Conference: XV European Congress of Ichthyology, Porto, Portugal, 7 Sep - 11 Sep, 2015. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Ecology, Conservation and Invasive Species Citation: Ribeiro Rodrigues L and Da Motta Marques D (2015). Lake size and fish diversity in southern Brazil coastal lagoons. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: XV European Congress of Ichthyology. doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2015.03.00159 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 26 Oct 2015; Published Online: 28 Nov 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues, UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL, PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, luciarrodrigues@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues David Da Motta Marques Google Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues David Da Motta Marques Google Scholar Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues David Da Motta Marques PubMed Lucia Ribeiro Rodrigues David Da Motta Marques Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.