Fish communities of a disturbed mangrove wetland and an adjacent tidal river in Palmar, Ecuador V.R. Shervette a, * , W.E. Aguirre b , E. Blacio c , Rodrigo Cevallos d , Marcelo Gonzalez d , Francisco Pozo d , F. Gelwick a a Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2258, USA b Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook, New York, NY 11794-5245, USA c Centro Nacional de Acuicultura e Investigaciones Marinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador d Facultad de Biologı ´a Marina, Universidad Estatal Peninsula de Santa Elena, Guayas Province, Ecuador Received 28 April 2006; accepted 17 October 2006 Available online 15 December 2006 Abstract Coastal Ecuador has lost 20e30% of mangrove wetlands over the past 30 years. Such habitat loss can impair the ecological functions of wetlands. A paucity of information exists concerning mangrove fish communities of Ecuador. In this study we identify the fish community of the remaining mangrove wetland in Palmar, Ecuador. Fish were sampled in the dry season of 2003 and the wet season of 2004 by seining in mangrove creeks and Main channel of Rio Palmar. For comparison, an adjacent tidal river without mangroves, Rio Javita, was also sampled. We collected a total of 12,231 individuals comprising 36 species in 16 families from Rios Palmar and Javita. Gobiidae (7 species) was the most diverse family for mangrove sites followed by Gerreidae (5 species) and Engraulidae (4 species). A total of 34 species were collected in the mangrove wetland, 21 of which were exclusive to the mangroves including three species of juvenile snook (Centropomidae), indicating that the mangrove habitat of Palmar may provide nursery habitat for these economically valued species. In Rio Javita, Carangidae (3 species) was the most diverse family followed by Engraulidae and Gerreidae (2 species each). A total of 14 species were collected in the tidal river, only two of which were exclusive to the river. Multivariate analyses of fish community data indicated significant differences in community com- position between the mangrove creeks and the tidal river and between seasons in both. Juvenile white mullet, Mugil curema, were collected in high relative abundance in both Rios Palmar and Javita, as was the tropical silverside Atherinella serrivomer an ecologically important species. Although Rios Palmar and Javita are characterized by relatively low fish species richness compared to other tropical estuarine systems, they appear to provide an important habitat for several economically and ecologically valued species. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: community; mangroves; nursery; estuarine habitat; trophic structure; Tropics; Ecuador 1. Introduction Mangroves are the dominant intertidal vegetation in subtro- pical and tropical estuarine systems (Chapman, 1976; Duke, 1992). Mangrove-dominated estuaries support essential eco- logical functions. Much like most estuarine ecosystems, man- grove wetlands intercept land-derived nutrients, pollutants, and suspended matter and act as a filtering system (Marshall, 1994; Rivera-Monroy and Twilley, 1996; Tam and Wong, 1999; Valiela et al., 2001). Mangrove systems also export materials supporting near-shore food webs (Twilley, 1988; Sasekumar et al., 1992; Twilley et al., 1997). Moreover, man- groves provide a direct benefit to humans through the provision of various extraction-based resources such as wood, lumber, honey, tannins, salt, and artisanal fisheries for mussels, crabs, and fish (Kathiresan and Bingham, 2001; Alongi, 2002). Many studies have reported the important role mangroves play in the life history of countless fish and invertebrate * Corresponding author. E-mail address: shervette@gmail.com (V.R. Shervette). 0272-7714/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2006.10.010 Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 72 (2007) 115e128 www.elsevier.com/locate/ecss