Fish Species Diversity Research Articles

The Spatial and Temporal Disparity of Fish Assemblage and Its Association with Environmental Factors Through Multivariate Statistical Analysis in Jammu and Kashmir's Himalayan River System.

The goal of this study was to explore the dynamics of the environmental components with fish species assemblages in the Ravi and Chenab rivers of the Himalayan river system during the study period from "July 2020 to June 2021".. To examine the relationship between fish species and environmental parameters, multivariate statistical analyses including canonical correspondence analysis, principal component analysis and cluster analysis were applied to data from fish species. ANOSIM and SIMPER were used to determine whether fish assemblage varied with seasons or streams and to identify the fish species that contributed to this variation between the sampling sites. To study the effect of environmental factors on fish species richness, multiple regression analysis was used. Fish species belonging to 30 species and 12 different families (Cyprinidae, 66.6%) were recorded from three study sites (Bhini, Jhajjar and Chadwal streams) with Chadwal (34.3%) having the most ichthyofaunal population. Hillstream fish species dominated the Bhini stream, while catfish species dominated the Jhajjar stream. The Chadwal Stream was home to a diversity of fish species due to its vast fishing grounds. The values of free carbon dioxide (FCO2), bicarbonates (HCO3-), and habitat structure showed significant variations (p<0.05). The Shannon-Wiener (H'), Simpson dominance, and Margalef index values of fish communities were high. Differences in environmental parameters in each sampling site influenced the fish population in the present study. Our findings showed that environmental factors influenced species composition and provided evidence for the dynamic interaction between environmental variables and fish assemblage in the Ravi and Chenab rivers.

Fish Diversity in the Middle Part of Klawing River, Purbalingga Regency, Central Java Province

Research on the diversity of fish species in the middle part of the Klawing River, Purbalingga Regency, Central Java Province, dealt with exploring the diversity of fish species in the middle part of the Klawing River. A survey method was applied to collect primary data during April-June 2022. Direct fish sampling was carried out at 3 stations in the middle part of Klawing River. The stations were chosen based on fish farming activities, domestic areas and accessibility. Station 1, 2, and 3 were located in Onje Village of Mrebet District, in Slinga and Lamongan Villages of Kaligondang District, respectively. The results showed that a total of 707 individuals were sampled, consisting of 23 species and 12 familia. Cyprinids dominated total samples. Diversity indexes were 1.94 and 1.99, in station 2 and 3, respectively. Diversity index in station 1 was 1.61. Dominance indexes were 0.26, 0.18, and 0.198, in station 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Evenness indexes consisted of 0.73 and 0.76, in station 1 and 2, respectively. However, evenness index in station 3 was 0.68.

RANCANG BANGUN SISTEM IOT UNTUK PETERNAKAN IKAN HIAS KOKI DAN MOLLY

As a country rich in fish species diversity, Indonesia was ranked as the fourth largest exporter of ornamental fish in the world from 2016 to 2019. Ornamental fish is one of the potential commodities. However, crop failure due to uncontrolled water quality such as rising ph levels is a problem that needs to be solved. As a solution, this study builds a LoRaWAN-based IoT system to be able to monitor ph, tds, and pool water temperature levels of koki and molly fish pond from anywhere and anytime through a mobile application. The sensor node uses a Heltec Lora Wi-Fi 32 v2 microcontroller that supports LoRa technology and uses the DS18B20 sensor as a temperature sensor, and a DFRobot sensor to measure ph and tds. From the test results, the accuracy of each sensor is quite good with an average error of 0.35 for temperature sensors and 0.37 for ph sensors, as well as an error percentage on tds sensors of 1.5. From the results of the implementation, the ph and temperature values in the koki fish and molly fish pond are quite good as habitats, but the tds value of pond water is quite high.

Assessment of Fin Fish Composition, Diversity and Abundance in the Upper Course of Otamiri River, Imo State

The fish composition in the upper course of Otamiri River was investigated for six months between April and September 2019, to determine the related abundance and diversity of fish species in the river. Fish species were collected weekly using fishing gears from three sampling stations which were purposefully selected. Sixteen species of fish belonging to nine (9) fish families were recorded. Among the families, Cichlidae recorded the most abundant at 83.3%, followed by Notopteridae (6.7%), Alestidae (4.2%) and Clarotidae (3.8%). Others include: Hepsidae (0.4%), and Cyprinidae (0.2%), while Channidae and Gymnarchidae were recorded as the least abundance with values of 0.1% each. The study showed that Sarotherodon melanotheron has the highest diversity with the value recorded 3.18, followed by Coptodon zilli having the value 3.09 respectively. It also shows that Barbus occidentalis with the value 0.69, followed by Coptodon dageti with value 1.01 has the least diversity. The study also showed that Pelmatopia mariae with value 0.99 was highly distributed. From the study, the fish species harvested from this water body have low population. This has great implication on the stock in the fishery and can also act as an indicator of over-exploitation of this species. Regular and detailed study on species composition of this water body should be encouraged for the sustainable utilization of its resources, also a proper restocking of Otamiri water body should be embarked on by Imo State government to enhance fresh water fish availability in the State and its environs.

Reef Fish Species Diversity Using Environmental DNA Metabarcoding in Mansinam and Lemon Island Waters, Manokwari Regency

Biodiversity has an essential role in the stability of an ecosystem. A high level of biodiversity indicates a more stable and stable ecosystem. The decline in the quality of ecosystems such as coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests due to anthropogenic factors and global warming threaten biodiversity. This study aims to determine the diversity of reef fish species using an environmental DNA (eDNA) approach in the waters of the Mansinam and Lemon, Manokwari Regency islands. The analysis results detected 158 individual fish comprising 26 species from 10 families (sequence identity 97-100%). The highest species abundance was found in the Pomacentridae Family. The Pomacentridae family is an ornamental fish species in coral reef ecosystems. In addition, several species from the families Serranidae, Caesionidae, Mullidae, Holocentridae, Balistidae, Scaridae, and Labridae were also detected; fish species from these families are catch targets for fishers with economic value. Assessment of fish species diversity using the Shannon-Wiener method. The diversity of fish species in the waters of the islands of Mansinam and Lemon is in the high category, namely 3.17. High diversity indicates a stable and stable ecosystem condition.

PENGARUH BUBUK DAUN KETAPANG (Terminalia catappa) TERHADAP PERFORMA PERTUMBUHAN IKAN GUPPY (Poecilia reticulata)

Indonesia has biodiversity and one of which is the diversity of ornamental fish species both marine and freshwater. One type of freshwater ornamental fish is quite in demand, namely guppies. This study aimed to analyze the effect of adding tropical almond leaf powder to the growth performance of guppies. This study used an experimental method with the addition of tropical almond leaf powder. The experimental design used was a completely randomized design (CRD) consisting of 5 treatments, namely treatment A (without the addition of tropical almond leaf powder/control), B (tropical almond leaf powder with a dose 0,13 g/L), C (tropical almond leaf powder with a dose 0,26 g/L), D (tropical almond leaf powder with a dose 0,40 g/L), E (tropical almond leaf powder with a dose 0,53 g/L), and each treatment was repeated 3 times. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) at a significant level of 5% with a 95% confidence interval and continued with the Duncan test. The result showed that the addition of tropical almond leaf powder had a significant effect on the parameters of absolute weight growth, specific weight growth rate, absolute length growth, specific length growth rate, feed conversion ratio, bacterial abundance and oxygen consumption level. Yet, it did not have a significant effect on the parameters of the survival rate of guppies. The best dose of tropical almond leaf powder obtained in this study was in treatment C (0,26 g/L).Keywords: Growth Performance, Guppies, Tropical Almond.

Influence of In-stream Ecosystem Restoration Techniques on the Fish Ecology of the River Nabongo in Eastern Uganda

The study was the first in Uganda to assess the responses of fish community assemblages to introduced woody debris structures in a tropical river in Eastern Uganda. For comparison purposes, two different woody debris structures (simple and complex) were introduced in river Nabongo, and their effect on fish assemblage and feeding was established based on experiments conducted in two heterogeneous stream environments (a pool and a riffle). Results showed that sampling plots treated with restoration structures registered higher fish species richness, diversity, and abundance than sampling plots without restoration structures (control plots) at each site. The study (experiment) applied a stratified sampling design which used purposive identification of a pool and a riffle in River Nabongo Catchment. Fish were captured using a drift net, an electro-fishing gear, and a hand net. Data were analysed using a one-way ANOVA generated from STATA version 14. At the pool site, total fish density varied significantly from plot to plot (P<0.05) but was highest in the complex structures with 64±1.08 fishes/m2 and lowest with 24±0.82 fishes/m2 in untreated plots. K-factor did not vary significantly in untreated plots at the pool site but significantly differed from treated plots at P<0.05. The relative abundance of fish species at the pool site was highest in the complex structures with 40.7±0.66% and 21.5±0.42% before structures but was least in the control plot, varying significantly from plot to plot at P<0.05. It was concluded that woody debris restoration is an effective stream restoration technique. Fish individuals, trophic groups, and taxa more densely colonised sampling plots that had structures than those that did not have structures.

PRELIMINARY STUDY OF FISH DIVERSITY IN PABEAN BAY, INDRAMAYU

Pabean Bay is an estuary waters in which salinity fluctuations occur. This fluctuation requires that the fish living in this location have the ability to adapt. This research is a preliminary study that aims to identify the diversity of fish species in these waters. The study was conducted from January to June 2015 with sampling at intervals of one month. Fishing was carried out at three stations, namely the inside which is the estuary of the river, the middle part and the outside of the estuary to get a representative sample. The fishing gear used are sero, and trammel nets. During the study, it was found that 78 species of fish were included in 39 families. The number of species in each sampling varies. Among the fish found were mainly the family Gobiidae (10 species) and the Family Leiognathidae, Lutjanidae, Sciaenidae and Tetraodontidae (four species each). Several fish species were found in the larval, juvenile and adult stages, and these conditions illustrate the importance of estuaries in the survival of the fish life cycle.

Diversity of reef fish species in presence of mangrove habitat in Ternate, North Maluku, Indonesia

Abstract. Utama RS, Renyaan J, Nurdiansah D, Makatipu PC, Suyadi, Hapsari BW, Martha E, Rahayu EMD, Sugiharto A. Akbar N. 2022. Diversity of reef fish species in presence of mangrove habitat in Ternate, North Maluku, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 23: 5184-5193. Research on reef fish has been widely reported, where information about reef fish communities is an important factor for evaluating fisheries management and coral reef management. Mangroves as the nursery, foraging, and growing areas were also important to assure sustainable reef fish fisheries. This paper studies reef fish abundance and diversity in Ternate Waters in the presence of mangrove in coral reef habitats. To determines coral reef condition underwater photo transect was performed while an underwater visual census (UVC) was used to determine the abundance and diversity of reef fishes in Ternate waters between 2017 and 2018. A total of 14 stations were used, with eight stations near the mangroves and six stations that did not contain mangroves. Based on the observation, fish species richness in mangrove absence was higher than in the presence of mangroves, with 68 and 65 species in 2017 and 66 and 62 species in 2018. However, the abundance of reef fish was recorded high in the presence of mangroves than in the absence of mangroves, with 390 and 289 individual differences in 2017 and 2018. Mangroves' complexity affected part of reef fish communities in Ternate water, particularly Lutjanidae, Serranidae, and Scaridae, which might influence the abundance of reef fishes rather than the species richness. In addition, carnivore shows a negative effect in the presence of mangroves, in contrast with herbivores. It is related to mangrove functioning as a temporary shelter when high-pressure presence in their natural habitat (reef) and a place for foraging. Therefore, mangrove management must be a consideration in the coral reef or fisheries management program.

Study on the fish species diversity and macro invertebrates of the river Narmada in Nimar Region of M.P.

The fishes are one of the most important vertebrate, provided rich protein sources for human and several animals and important elements in the economy of many countries. Fish diversity of river essentially represents the fish faunal diversity. Rivers conserve a rich variety of fish species which supports the from the period August 2009 to July 2010. The aim of the study was to explore the fish fauna of Narmada River. In the course of investigation, four sampling spots were selected Viz. Omkareshwar, Mandleshwar, Maheshwar and Barwani of Narmada River. The total 43 fish species were recorded under four orders, nine families and 16 genera. 21 species of commercial fisheries. The country is rich in diversity of such important group of animals keeping in the view, the diversity of fish fauna of the Narmada River in Omkareshwar to Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, Central India has been studied Cypriniformes, three species of Ophiocephaliformes, two species. The Cyprinidae family is dominant and sub dominant family is of Perciformes and one species of Mastacembeliformes have been recorded Ophiocephalidae. Recently, the Tor fish species commonly called ‘Mahasheer” has been declared state Fish of Madhya Pradesh. The over fishing and pollution are the major threat for fish diversity of the Narmada River.

A Brief Overview of Population Biology of Mangrove Fisheries in Malaysia

One of important habitat for estuarine fish and their juvenile are mangrove areas, as hundreds of studies had been conducted since 1950s until now to assess and understand the distribution and diversity of them over there. The study of population biology in tropical and sub-tropical mangrove estuaries nowadays have reached new level of achievement where they contribute significantly in the socio-economic field. So, the main objective of this paper are briefly described and reviewed some aspects of population biology (such as distribution and diversity) of mangrove fisheries in Malaysia. In the making of this paper, literature materials from the past such as scientific journals, reference books and online statistics related to mangrove fisheries were collected and referred. Species diversity and distribution of fish is one of the most important aspects in stock assessment of mangrove fishes as it provides a brief information on the composition of fish species and their populations. Overall, the information from this paper can be shared with the concerned authorities and researchers for management purposes and population studies to a greater extent.

Longitudinal fish species diversity and distribution in a medium-sized Afro-tropical river in the Lake Victoria Basin

Despite significantly influencing fisheries characteristics of major global basins, medium-sized rivers such as Awach Kibuon remain the least studied. This study evaluated longitudinal fish species diversity, distribution, and environmental influence in Awach Kibuon River, Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya, to inform sustainable management of fisheries resources within the region. Nine sites located in different zones of the river were sampled monthly for eight months in 2019 and 2020. Fish samples were collected for 45 minutes using a backpack electrofisher on a 50-m river reach in every sampling site. Selected physico-chemical parameters (pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), dissolved oxygen (DO), temperature, conductivity, and turbidity) were measured in situ using standard methods. Longitudinal river fish diversity was assessed using species richness, Simpson's Index (D), Shannon-Weiner Index (H′), and Pielou's Evenness Index (J). A total of 983 fish specimens belonging to 21 species, 12 genera, seven families, and six orders were caught during sampling. Cyprinidae was the most dominant family, represented by nine species, followed by Claridae, Mochokidae, and Cichlidae, represented by three species each. Longitudinal species richness, abundance, and diversity indices deviated from the expected downstream increase. Upstream stations had no fish, whereas midstream and river mouth stations had moderate and high species diversity, respectively. Pearson's correlation analyses showed that temperature, conductivity, TDS, depth, and velocity influenced fish species richness in the river. The above findings call for the inclusion of medium-sized rivers in fisheries management plans of Great Lakes Basins for sustainability.

Diversity of Fish in Idanoi River and It’s Relationship to Physical Factors of Water Chemistry

A river is an area through which a body of water moves from a high place to a low place either through the surface or underground which has an average width equal to or more than 5 meters. One of the rivers in Indonesia is the Idanoi river, located in the North Sumatra region, Ononamolo 1 Lot village, Gunungsitoli Selatan sub-district, Nias. This river is inseparable from human activities which affects the condition of river waters as a habitat for aquatic biota. The purpose of this study was to analyze the diversity of fish species in the river Idanoi and to analyze the physical-chemical factors of waters which correlate with the diversity of fish species in the river Idanoi. This study uses the Random sampling method. The results of the research obtained from the four research stations found 1 class, 5 orders, 7 families and 7 species. The highest density value was found at station 1 with a value of 0.023 ind / m2, fish diversity index ranged from 1.072 - 1.829 and the fish uniformity index ranged from 0.92 to 0.98. DO, BOD5 values and oxygen saturation correlated very strongly with fish diversity in river Idanoi village Ononamolo 1 Lot.

Ichthyofauna diversity in Pematang Matik Coastal Waters, Serdang Bedagai District, North Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract. Wahyuningsih H, Sinaga SMS, Hartanto A. 2022. Ichthyofauna diversity in Pematang Matik Coastal Waters, Serdang Bedagai District, North Sumatra. Biodiversitas 23: 4992-5000. Pematang Matik Coastal waters are coastal areas that have a major role in the life of various fish species. Research on fish diversity in coastal waters is very important in order to gain a better understanding on the fish diversity in coastal areas such as North Sumatra, including Indonesia. The objective of this study was to initiate an inventory of fish species, their abundance and assessment of its biodiversity based on Shannon's diversity index (H'), and evenness index (E) in Pematang Matik coastal waters. The research was conducted from September to October 2021 at four stations with different human activities by the coastal community. Fish samples were taken using fishing nets that were installed for 12 hr with two replications. In this study, 21 species of fish from 19 families were identified. The highest abundance of fish was obtained from the Mugilidae family, namely Crenimugil crenilabis and Liza macrolepis. The fish diversity index obtained was 2.19-2.95, while the uniformity index obtained was 0.719-0.968. The values ??of H' and E at Station 4 (absent from any human interferences) have higher values ??than the other three stations. The diversity, as expressed in H' value in four research stations, indicates that the coastline has a high diversity of fish species.

IMPACT OF HUMAN INTERFERENCE ON FISH DIVERSITY IN FIVE WETLANDS OF NORTH BENGAL, INDIA

This study was conducted in five wetlands of North Bengal to find out impact of anthropogenic activities in diversity of fish species. Total 101 fish species were documented in those wetlands. Maximum species (93) were recorded from Gajoldoba wetland, whereas Nimai beel recorded only 33 species. Results indicate that anthropogenic activities (other than fishing) affected ichthyofauna diversity adversely. Human interferences altered electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen, BOD, free carbon dioxide, phosphate and nitrate level significantly. Also, human interferences significantly affected emergent vegetation covered shore area and percentage of floating vegetation. All those physio-chemical and vegetative changes possibly affected the zooplankton diversity negatively dwindling the base of the food chain and in turn, affected fish diversity. Immediate and proper action should be taken to save this biodiversity and the wetland of this region as a whole.

The ecological health of Lake Victoria (Kenya) in the face of growing cage aquaculture

AbstractThe rapid growth of cage aquaculture of introduced Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in Lake Victoria has raised urgent environmental concerns. This study aims to compare local environmental conditions, fish species abundance and diversity between paired cage and control stations at four locations over 9 months (n = 72) in Lake Victoria, Kenya. The study sites were arrayed along a limnological gradient from eutrophic waters within Winam Gulf, to more oligotrophic waters off Mfangano Island. It was hypothesized that nutrient loading, fish biomass, and species diversity would be higher at the cages than within control areas. Water quality variables were measured at 1 m depth and fish sampled using replicate sets of monofilament gillnets. A principal components analysis reduced our dataset into two significant PCs; PC1, which accounts for eutrophication and PC2, which reflects seasonal variability. Two‐way analysis of variance tests on PC1 and PC2 scores found no significant differences between paired cage‐control stations at any site. Significant differences between sites confirmed a strong gradient in eutrophication and variability, decreasing from the inner gulf to the open lake (PC1, FSite = 139.426, p < .001; PC2, FSite = 10.675, p < .001). Water transparency ranged from 0.38 (SD 0.09) to 2.65 (SD 0.4) m, increasing with distance from the inner gulf. Mean monthly fish biomass was higher near cages than controls (FStation = 6.517, p < .05). Seventeen species across eight families were recorded. Fish species were more abundant and diverse in the inner gulf with some species significantly more abundant near cages than near controls. The findings failed to show significantly degraded water quality near cage aquaculture farms compared to control areas. This suggests that cage farms positioned in deep high‐flow lake areas can act as both a refugia from fishing pressure and a submerged structure for shelter and foraging for threatened endemic fishes.

YOLO-Fish: A robust fish detection model to detect fish in realistic underwater environment

Over the last few years, several research works have been performed to monitor fish in the underwater environment aimed for marine research, understanding ocean geography, and primarily for sustainable fisheries. Automating fish identification is very helpful, considering the time and cost of the manual process. However, it can be challenging to differentiate fish from the seabed and fish types from each other due to environmental challenges like low illumination, complex background, high variation in luminosity, free movement of fish, and high diversity of fish species. In this paper, we propose YOLO-Fish, a deep learning based fish detection model. We have proposed two models, YOLO-Fish-1 and YOLO-Fish-2. YOLO-Fish-1 enhances YOLOv3 by fixing the issue of upsampling step sizes of to reduce the misdetection of tiny fish. YOLO-Fish-2 further improves the model by adding Spatial Pyramid Pooling to the first model to add the capability to detect fish appearance in those dynamic environments. To test the models, we introduce two datasets: DeepFish and OzFish. The DeepFish dataset contains around 15k bounding box annotations across 4505 images, where images belong to 20 different fish habitats. The OzFish is another dataset comprised of about 43k bounding box annotations of wide varieties of fish across around 1800 images. YOLO-Fish1 and YOLO-Fish2 achieved average precision of 76.56% and 75.70%, respectively for fish detection in unconstrained real-world marine environments, which is significantly better than YOLOv3. Both of these models are lightweight compared to recent versions of YOLO like YOLOv4, yet the performances are very similar.

Effects of Spartina alterniflora invasion on the functional groups and niche of benthic crustaceans and fishes in mangrove wetland.

To investigate the effects of Spartina alterniflora invasion on mangrove wetland ecosystem, the benthic crustacean and fish samples were collected using cage nets in Zhangjiang Estuary Mangrove Wetland, Fujian Pro-vince in August 2020, January and April 2021. The five sampling sites included two mangroves (Avicennia marina and Kandelia obovata) sites, two S. alterniflora sites, and one mudflat site. The abundance, biomass, index of relative importance (IRI), Shannon diversity index (H), Pielou evenness index (J), and Margalef richness index (D) were used to quantify the dominant species and species diversity of benthic crustaceans and fishes. The functional groups and niche of dominant species were also analyzed. A total of 37 species, from 2 phyla, 2 classes, 8 orders, and 17 families, were identified across the three seasons. Most of them were warm-water and euryhaline species, mainly carnivorous and omnivorous functional groups. The results of two-way analysis of variance and NMDS showed that the community diversity index of benthic crustacean and fish did not change significantly after the invasion of S. alterniflora compared with mudflat. Functional groups had changed significantly, with the species number of plankton functional groups, carnivorous and phytophagous functional groups being increased. Compared with mangrove sites, the number of species of benthic crustacean and fish in S. alterniflora sites was significantly increased. The spatio-temporal niche breadth of dominant species ranged from 0 to 1.4186, with Liza carinata (1.4186), Bostrychus sinensis (1.0168), Metapenaeus ensis (0.9469) and Exopalaemon carinicauda (0.8922) as the top four species.

The Diversity of Fish in Seagrass Beds and Bare Sand channel In Tablolong Waters, Kupang Regency

Seagrass ecosystems in Tablolong waters have important values related to the availability of fish resources. However, this seagrass meadow experiences a lot of fragmentation in the form of empty sand areas without vegetation (bare sand), both in the form of channels and tidal pools which provide many small living spaces (microhabitats) that are interesting for aquatic ecology studies. The aim of this research was to analyze the diversity and dominance of fish species in the seagrass beds and bare sand channels, as well as to determine the dominant species of seagrasses in the seagrass beds. The study was conducted through direct observation by catching fish specimens using gillnets (# 1.5 inches and #1.25 inches, @ length 20 m x height 1.5 m) and scoop nets three (3) times sampling with time intervals. 7-10 days in the time period of October-November 2021. The results showed that the seagrass beds in the Tablolong Waters are classified as heterospecific from at least 6 (six) seagrass species with an average density of all species reaching 219.2 stands/m2 and an average cover of 40.0% (medium level of cover) where Thalassia hemprichii was the dominant seagrass species in terms of density value (more than 50%of total species) and cover value almost 40% of total species. The fish collection obtained as a whole consisted of 22 fish species from 17 families with 86 individuals where the fish community in the seagrass beds (9 species, 8 families, 17 individuals) was recorded to be lower than the fish community in the empty sand tunnel (13 species, 11 families, 49 individuals), each with a ratio of 41%:59% in species, a ratio of 47%:65% in families and a ratio of 43%:57% in the number of individuals. The status of the fish species that dominates was the occasional visitor fish of 90% (20 species) compared to seasonal visitor fish and whole life resident fish of 5% (1 species). The index value of fish species diversity in seagrass beds was moderate (H’ 2) which was lower than the fish community in empty sand tunnels which was high (H’ 4) and the total number of fish species on Tablolong beach was high (H’ > 4). The fish species dominance index value showed that in both fish in seagrass beds (D 0.28), in empty sandtunnels (D 0.11), and the whole area (D 0.25) in Tablolong waters there were no dominant fish species. So that the structure of the fish community tends to be stable or the diversity of fish species tends to be high.

Species diversity of coral reef fishes around the West Island of Sanya City, South China Sea, based on environmental DNA.

West Island is the second largest island in the Hainan Province, China and its surrounding sea area has a well-preserved coral reef ecosystem and high species diversity of coral reef fishes. Undoubtedly, coral reef fishes and coral reefs have complex symbiotic relationships and fish species diversity should reflect the healthy status of coral reef ecosystems. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a useful and sensitive tool to detect fish species and causes less environmental damage than traditional fish survey methods. This paper investigated coral reef fish species of West Island, Hainan Province, China, based on eDNA and provided scientific data for understanding and protection of the coral reef ecosystem of the South China Sea. The sea area surrounding West Island is the most important component of the coral reef ecosystem in the northern part of the South China Sea, which is also an essential part of the largest National Coral Reef Reserve in China. However, complete data of fish species distributed in this region have been a long-term gap. This study provides information on 41 fish species belonging to 28 genera, 16 families and three orders in this sea area and is the first complete record of coral reef fishes surrounding the West Island. In addition, the information of Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) for taxon identification were also provided and it could contribute to building specific eDNA taxonomy database of coral reef fishes of the South China Sea. The study includes three datasets, with aspects of fish taxon-occurrences, MOTUs sequences and information of environmental indicators surrounding West Island, Hainan Province, China. The "fish taxon occurrences" dataset presents records involving taxonomic, distribution, habitat condition, latitude and longitude of 41 coral reef fish species detected, based on eDNA, the "MOTUs sequences" dataset provides MOTUs sequences and their abundance of 31 species detected and the "information of environmental indicators" dataset presents records of transparency, temperature, water pressure, dissolved oxygen, electrical conductivity, hydrogen and redox potential measured from five sampling localities.