Fish community composition and diversity at restored estuarine habitats in Tampa Bay, Florida, United States

Abstract

Estuary restoration in Tampa Bay, Florida, United States, is an ongoing focus of natural resource managers because of pressure from an increasing coastal population, historic habitat loss, and restoration's importance to economic development, recreational activities, and fish habitat. A growing population can also limit future large‐scale restorations due to associations with cost and land availability. This limitation might be overcome by applying the habitat mosaic approach to restoration, which creates distinct habitat types at small spatial scales. This approach was applied to create three types of estuarine habitat, reconnected tidal creek, salt marsh, and tidal pond. The objectives of this study were to (1) initiate monitoring of a restored wetland mosaic and (2) determine how fish diversity and community structure vary among restored habitat types. Replicated sampling using a 3‐mm mesh seine was used to characterize the fish communities. Our results indicate that the habitat mosaic approach creates suitable habitat for a variety of fish species where 37% of fish species were captured in just one habitat type. In particular, the recreationally important Centropomus undecimalis (common snook) was more common in the mangrove‐lined creek and the non‐native Sarotherodon melanotheron (blackchin tilapia) was common in the tidal pond. Greater emphasis should be placed on applied restoration research to identify how habitat types within a larger restoration mosaic contribute to local species diversity and recreationally and commercially important fishes, while limiting non‐natives. This emphasis could reveal how restoration approaches can be modified to include habitat mosaics, maximizing their contribution to productive fish habitat.

Coastal restoration evaluated using dominant habitat characteristics and associated fish communities

“…Restored sites are providing environmental and habitat conditions similar to natural sites, one of which is suitable shoreline vegetation for a variety of species [ 47 ], this is supported by the PCA. Ultimately, these results support the widely reported finding that many small fishes, including juvenile sportfish, utilize shoreline vegetation [ 24 , 43 , 54 ], making this habitat feature an important target for restoration.…”

“…The study area was located on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay and included three natural, three restored, and three impacted sampling areas ( Fig 1 ). Sites were selected based on accessibility, proximity to adjacent sites, and published works describing fish communities within Tampa Bay [ 2 , 36 , 42 , 43 ]. A restored site was defined as an area that has been physically and biologically modified to re-establish or create habitat that supports estuarine aquatic communities.…”

The fish community in Gulf of Mexico mangroves, a response to hydrological restoration

“…Season Richness Diversity (H) Evenness (J) 2015 Conserved Nortes 5.0 (0) 1.1 (0.2) 0.7 (0.1) Dry 2.0 (1.4) 0.4 (0.6) 0.4 (0.6) Rainy 2.3 (1.5) 0.4 (0.4) 0.3 (0.3) Under restoration Nortes 4.5 (2.1) 0.9 (0.2) 0.7 (0.4) Dry 3.8 (2.0) 1.0 (0.4) 0.8 (0.1) Rainy 4.3 (1.0) 1.1 (0.3) 0.8 (0.1) 2017 Conserved Nortes 3.0 (2.2) 0.7 (0.6) 0.6 (0.4) Dry 2.8 (1.0) 0.7 (0.2) 0.7 (0.1) Rainy 3.4 (0.9) 0.2 (0.2) 0.3 (0.3) Under restoration Nortes 5.0 (1.6) 1.0 (0.4) 0.7 (0.2) Dry 5.0 (2.3) 1.1 (0.6) 0.6 (0.3) Rainy 4.6 (1.7) 1.0 (0.4) 0.7 (0.2) Peters et al 2015). It is also important to extend the sampling hours to record the dynamics of the mangroves (Schaberg et al 2019). According to GLMM, water depth, temperature, and salinity significantly affect the abundance of residents and overall species.…”

“…In this study, the evaluation was carried out in two years, and perhaps it was little to show changes in the fish community. The recovery of function of the mangrove ecosystem will take time; major changes in the structure of fish communities exhibit mangroves with a longer resto-ration period (Arceo-Carranza et al 2016, Schaberg et al 2019) because mangrove restoration involves a natural regeneration process (Echeverría-Ávila et al 2019, Pérez-Ceballos et al 2020. As mangrove structure and function are restored, it is expected that more habitats and resources will be made available to fish, like invertebrates, and larger and commercially important species such as the snooks (Family Centropomidae) or the snappers (Family Lutjanidae) -will enter the site under restoration (Schaberg et al 2019).…”

“…Several attributes of ichthyofauna have been evaluated through the mangrove restoration processes, including richness, biomass, composition, and diversity (Lewis III & Gilmore 2007, Salmo III et al 2018. For example, fish fauna in restored areas showed an increase of abundance and species richness over time (Arceo-Carranza et al 2016), increase of richness and secondary production of resident species (Valentine-Rose & Layman 2011), increase of diversity and evenness (Adite et al 2013), and the entrance of transient species (Schaberg et al 2019).…”