Ichthyofauna of the Ribeirão Taboão, Paraíba do Sul river basin, Mogi das Cruzes, SP

Abstract

Paraíba do Sul basin houses 71 fish species belonging to 18 families, 18% of the known species in the whole state (Oyakawa and Menezes 2011). Despite of the major cited impacts registered for the region including Mogi das Cruzes, the Ribeirão Taboão presents relatively well preserved portions and is, therefore, of great importance for the maintenance of local fish biodiversity. The present study aims to describe the ichthyofauna from the Ribeirão Taboão, emphasizing on a few ecological features of its fishes. Materials and Methods Study Area The Ribeirão Taboão belongs to the upper Paraíba do Sul drainage, municipality of Mogi das Cruzes, approximately 50km in a straight line from the center of São Paulo City. The region belongs to the Tropical Atlantic Domain (Ab′Saber 1977) with remains of Atlantic Rainforest. The studied area is located near the upper Rio Tietê basin (Paraná basin), in the far west of the Paraíba do Sul basin belonging to the upper reaches of this drainage (Teixeira et al., 2005). Five stations were sampled along the stream, which are listed and described below (Figure 1 and Table 1). Sampling Samples were taken at July 31 st and August 1 st in five stations sampled for three hours each one. Trapezoid hand nets with 1m 2 of area and 0.1cm of internode distance