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Fish diversity and distribution in the Gambia Estuary, West Africa, in relation to environmental variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2004

Jean-Jacques Albaret ,
Monique Simier ,
Famara Sambou Darboe ,
Jean-Marc Ecoutin ,
Jean Raffray  and
Luis Tito de Morais
Jean-Jacques Albaret*
Affiliation:
IRD, BP 1386, Dakar, Senegal
Monique Simier
Affiliation:
IRD, Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale, avenue Jean Monnet, BP 171, 34203 Sète Cedex, France
Famara Sambou Darboe
Affiliation:
Department of Fisheries, 6, Col. Muammar Ghaddafi Avenue, Banjul, The Gambia
Jean-Marc Ecoutin
Affiliation:
IRD, BP 1386, Dakar, Senegal
Jean Raffray
Affiliation:
IRD, BP 1386, Dakar, Senegal
Luis Tito de Morais
Affiliation:
IRD, BP 1386, Dakar, Senegal
*
albaret@ird.sn
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Abstract

The Gambia Estuary, a “normal” estuary with a decreasing salinity gradient from the mouth towards the head, is moderately exploited by small-scale fisheries and does not receive any severe pollution from either agriculture or industrial activities. Neither the Gambia River nor its estuary are artificially impounded. As the last large West African estuary free of major human disturbance, it is of considerable interest for comparative studies on the effect of major environmental perturbations in West African estuarine ecosystems. The aquatic environment and fish communities of the Gambia Estuary (about 250 km long) were studied by purse seine sampling at different periods in the river cycle, covering all hydro-climatic seasons that are characteristic of West African estuaries. Emphasis was placed on the diversity, composition, structure and distribution of fish assemblages in relation to fluctuations in physico-chemical factors such as water temperature, salinity and turbidity. Results on the aquatic environment, mainly the salinity range (from freshwater to 39) and dissolved oxygen (never a limiting factor for fish in the estuary) and on the main characteristics of the fish fauna (high diversity of life cycles, all the ecological categories represented) indicated that the Gambia Estuary was free of major climatic perturbation and reinforced the choice of this system as a reference for the study of the effects of major perturbations on estuarine tropical fish communities.

Keywords

Fish communityAquatic environmentEstuaryGambiaWest Africa
Type
Research Article
Information
Aquatic Living Resources , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2004 , pp. 35 - 46
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, IFREMER, IRD, 2004

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