Community structure of fish in inner Ambon bay, Maluku, Indonesia

Abstract

Research to study community structure of fish was carried out during April/May 2014 represented first transition period and during January/February 2015 represented west monsoon at Lateri waters, Inner Ambon bay. Fish samples were collected by using beach seine operating during the night. A total of 31 families that consist of 50 species of fishes were collected during the study in which 27 were pelagic fishes and 23 were demersal species. The most abundant species was represented by Stolephorus indicus (>50%) followed by Leiognathus leuciscus and Encrasicholina hetroloba (pooled > 25%). The highest occurrences of frequency were represented by Caranx sexfasciatus, Leiognathus equulus and S. indicus (presence=100%), while the lowest were represented by 14 species (12.5%). Shannon diversity indexes (H’) for first transition, west monsoon and pooled were 1.57, 1.84 and 1.83, respectively with the Simpson dominance indexes were 0.37, 0.24 and 0.30, respectively. Shannon evenness indexes for first transition, west monsoon and pooled were 0.43, 0.52 and 0.47, respectively. Based on those three indexes it could be concluded that fish community in Inner Ambon bay have moderate diversity with low dominance but in unsteady state. This unsteady state of fish community could be due to high fishing intensity or might be due to environmental degradation of Inner Ambon bay.