Seasonal abundance, distribution, and catch per unit effort using gill-nets, of fishes in the Sundays estuary

Abstract

Catch per unit effort was obtained for the fish of the Sundays estuary by means of gill-netting. Fifty•five gill•net catches were made in which 1258 fish were caught in the mouth, middle and upper reaches of the estuary. Sea catfish, Tachysurus feliceps dominated catches numerically and kob Argyrosomus h%/epidotus In terms of weight (31 % of total). CPUE was 21 kg/standard net. Mean body weight of fish was 894 g. It seems that the food web in the Sundays estuary is based largely upon phytoplankton and dependent zooplankton grazers.

Fish communities in temporarily open/closed estuaries from the warm- and cool-temperate regions of South Africa: A review

“…In warmtemperate estuaries, Mugilidae and Sparidae were represented by the greatest number of species. Marais and Baird 1980;Marais 1981;1983;Kok and Whitfield 1986;Vorwerk et al 2001) with a total of 10 species recorded from the cool-and warmtemperate regions (Harrison 2005). In contrast, only two mugilid species are recorded in temperate estuaries of south-western Australia (Potter et al 1990).…”

Composition, distribution and abundance of ichthyoplankton in the Sundays River Estuary

“…Past research on estuarine ichthyoplankton has concentrated on the Swartkops estuary in the eastern Cape and Swartvlei system in the southern Cape (Melville- Smith & Baird 1980;Beckley 1985;Whitfield 1989aWhitfield , 1989b. In this paper the species composition, seasonal abundance and distribution of fish larvae within the Sundays River estuary are outlined, thus complementing the studies of Beckley (1984) and Marais (1981) who investigated the juvenile and adult components, respectively, of this fish community. …”

A comparison of the fish communities in nearby permanently open, seasonally open and normally closed estuaries in the South-Western Cape, South Africa

“…Generally, fewer species and individuals are present during winter and abundance and species diversity increase during spring to reach a peak in summer/autumn. The species primarily responsible for these seasonal trends breed in the sea and migrate into the estuaries as small juveniles where they remain, usually for less than a year , before migrating back to the sea (Gunter 1938, Dahlberg and Odum 1970, Oviatt and Nixon 1973, Cain and Dean 1976, Whitfield 1980, Horn and Allen 1981, Marais 1981, Beckley 1984, Claridge et al 1986. Because estuaries are highly productive and usually have shallow, calm, turbid waters, they offer juvenile fish good conditions for growth and protection from predators.…”