Status of Fish Assemblage Structure in the Garmat Ali River, Iraq

Abstract

The status of fish assemblage structure in Garmat Ali River, north of Basrah, Iraq was assessed. Fish were sampled monthly by different fishing gears from November 2015 to October 2016. Water temperature varied from 14.3 o C in December to 32.7 o C in September, and salinity ranged from 1.5 in June to 6.0 in December. A total 34 fish species belonging to 16 families were collected, 7 of them were native, 8 exotic and 19 marine species. The most abundant species were Poecilia latipinna, comprising 57.66% of the total catch, Tenualosa ilisha (15.29%) and Thryssa whiteheadi (7.96%). The dominance value (D3) was 80.9%. These results were contrasted with the past findings on the river. The mean annual values of diversity, richness and evenness indices were 1.91, 2.95 and 0.76, respectively. Associations between the distribution of fish species and the environmental variables were quantified by using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA).