The Brazilian North coast is one of the world’s most important shrimp fishery grounds, with a total area of approximately 223,000 km2. However, the available data on the diversity of fish caught by the region’s industrial trawler fleet are limited to the commercially-valuable species. This lacuna in the data on the region’s marine fish fauna is worrying, both for the management of stocks and the conservation of the local biodiversity. The present study was based on a comprehensive inventory of the teleost fishes captured by the industrial outrigger trawling operations off the North coast of Brazil. This inventory recorded 201 species belonging to 64 families and 20 orders, and revealed a unique fauna, characterized by 17 endemic species, and a mixture of estuarine-dependent and marine species, mainly associated with coral reefs. The Kernel density analysis indicated that the industrial trawling fleet operates within an important ecotone, which encompasses the transition zones of different fish communities found off the Brazilian North coast.
Studies accounting the ichthyofauna composition of the Santos-São Vincente estuary-bay and Bertioga channel complex (SSEBBC) are scarce, even with its high ecological and economical importance. In this sense, the present study performed a checklist of the ichthyofauna from the SSEBBC aiming to report the distribution, diet, habitat, economic importance, and conservation status of the collected fish species. Twenty-four (24) monthly collecting campaigns were conducted between March 2013 and February 2015. In each survey, four locations around Bagres Island were sampled with the aid of gill nets with standardized effort. Dead fish specimens were also collected during the accidental fire that occurs on the Terminal Químico de Aratú S.A. (TEQUIMAR) between April 2nd and 10th of 2015. A total of 172 fish specimens were collected, where 50.6% were carnivorous; 35.5% were marine-estuarine; 44.2% with high occidental Atlantic Ocean distribution; 44.8% were a high important food resource. Regarding the conservation status, these fish species were classified as “low-worries” in 76.2% for the global evaluation; 95.3% in national evaluation; and 55.2% in São Paulo State evaluation. Moreover, 53 new fish species were catalogued for the Santos-São Vincente estuary-bay, where 12 were collected during the field monitoring and 41 during the fire monitoring. Fifty-eight (58) fish species collected during the field campaigns were categorized like “insufficient data”; 3 as alien species (Oreochromis niloticus, Opsanus beta e Butis koilomatodon); and there was a rare record of Megalops atlanticus in São Paulo State. Besides of the high anthropization, the studied area presented high fish species richness and should be monitored to ensure the fish species conservation status.
The largehead hairtail, Trichiurus lepturus, is an opportunistic, voracious, and piscivorous predator. Studies of fish feeding behavior based on the analysis of stomach contents are limited by the potential for the visual identification of the ingesta. However, molecular tools, in particular DNA barcoding, have been used successfully to identify stomach contents. When morphological analyses are not possible, molecular tools can precisely identify the components of the diet of a fish based on its stomach contents. This study used mini barcoding to identify food items ingested by T. lepturus off the northern coast of São Paulo State, Brazil. Forty-six sequences were obtained and were diagnosed as belonging to six different fish species: Pimelodus maculatus, Paralonchurus brasiliensis, Isopisthus parvipinnis, Opisthonema oglinum, Harengula clupeola, and Pellona harroweri or as belonging to the genera Lycengraulis and Sardinella. Trichiurus lepturus is an opportunistic predator that will exploit an available prey of an appropriate size. The results indicate that these fish migrate to warmer waters, such as those found in estuarine environments, at certain times of the year, where they exploit prey species that reproduce in this environment. One example was Pimelodus maculatus, which was the prey species most exploited based on the analysis of the material collected.
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