Biodiv Sci ›› 2016, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (8): 896-906.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2016111

• Original Papers: Animal Diversity • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Demersal nekton community structure of artificial reef zones in Laoshan Bay, Qingdao

Hongyan Liu, Chaojie Yang, Peidong Zhang, Wentao Li, Xiaolong Yang, Xiumei Zhang*()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, Shandong 266003
  • Received:2016-04-25 Accepted:2016-07-19 Online:2016-08-20 Published:2016-09-02
  • Contact: Zhang Xiumei

Abstract:

A field survey of the artificial reef and the control zones in Laoshan Bay, Shandong Province was performed from May 2015 to January 2016. We analyzed the community structure and biodiversity of demersal nekton by using Margalef’s species richness index, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Pielou’s evenness index, abundance-biomass comparison curves, clustering analysis, SIMPER (similarity percentage) analysis, and Non-metric Multi Dimensional Scaling (NMDS). A total number of 61 species of nekton belonging to 34 families were captured during the surveys, including 36 species of fish, 22 species of crustaceans and 3 species of cephalopods. Charybdis japonica, Sebastes schlegelii, Hexagrammus otakii, H. agrammus and Conger myriaster were the dominant species, of which C. japonica and S. schlegelii were the dominant species by weight (26.91% and 26.74%, respectively). The highest monthly mean catch per unit effort (CPUE) in the investigated zones appeared in May 2015, and reached up to 735.74 g· net-1·d-1. It was noted that the diversity indices were higher in July and August, but there were no significant differences in community structure parameters between the artificial reef and the control zones (P>0.05). The abundance-biomass curves (ABC) of the nekton community indicated that the community was seriously disturbed in May and June 2015, but was stable by November 2015 and January 2016. Cluster analysis showed that similarities were high in different months and different zones, except January 2016, and the highest similarity appeared in the artificial reef of the Sanmuqian zone between May and June 2015, when it reached 86.21%.

Key words: artificial reef, nekton community structure, diversity, abundance-biomass comparison curves, Laoshan Bay