Mangroves monitoring - Snappers

Aburto-Oropeza, Octavio (2017). Mangroves monitoring - Snappers. In dataMares: Ecological Monitoring. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J0B56GW0

The Gulf of California Marine Program and El Centro para la Biodiversidad Marina y Conservacion have collaborated in a long-term monitoring effort of marine habitats in the Gulf of California since 1998. These data allow researchers to assess changes in habitat and wildlife populations over time. Mangroves, one of the habitats in the Gulf included in the monitoring program, are surveyed for the populations of fish living in the fringe of prop roots of Rhizophora mangle (red mangroves) at the waters edge of mangrove forests. These surveys are conducted by researchers who snorkel along a 50 m transect along the perimeter of the mangrove, identifying, size-estimating, and counting each fish observered within a 1 m swath on each side of the transect. The numbers of individuals in each species and size category are recorded. This dataset includes data from 2006 to 2009 on fishes of the family Lutjanidae (snappers), an important group for fisheries and one which depends on the mangrove fringe as nursery habitat, and combines them with descriptions of the geological substrate, location, and extent of the mangrove forest at each site. In 2007 and 2009, the two years with the most comprehensive sampling of mangrove sites, the data show that the densities of juvenile snapper at each site--and thus the productivity of each mangrove in terms of recruitment to local fisheries--changes from year to year. In 2007, rocky mangrove habitats throughout the region produced more juvenile snappers than sandy habitats, while in 2009, all habitats in the central Gulf were consistently more productive than all those in the sourthern Gulf. These results highlight the productivity of mangrove habitats to offshore fish populations and fisheries and demonstrate the significant effects of interannual environmental variation (e.g., El Nino/Southern Oscillation) on the nursery function of these habitats.

Inquiries should be directed to Octavio Aburto-Oropeza (maburto@ucsd.edu)

• 2006-11-02 to 2009-07-25

• 2017

• Aburto-Oropeza, Octavio

• Giron-Nava, Alfredo

• Scripps Institution of Oceanography

These surveys are conducted by researchers who snorkel along a 50 m transect along the perimeter of the mangrove, identifying, size-estimating, and counting each fish observered within a 1 m swath on each side of the transect. The numbers of individuals in each species and size category are recorded. This dataset includes data from 2006 to 2009 on fishes of the family Lutjanidae (snappers), an important group for fisheries and one which depends on the mangrove fringe as nursery habitat, and combines them with descriptions of the geological substrate, location, and extent of the mangrove forest at each site.

Software used: Microsoft Excel. Coordinate system: WGS 1984.

• Gulf of California (Mexico)

• Mangrove
• Nursery habitat
• Snapper

• data

• English
• Spanish; Castilian

Doi: https://doi.org/10.6075/J0B56GW0

Interactive viewer

• Matthew Thomas Costa, Isaí Dominguez-Guerrero, José Cota-Nieto, Exequiel Ezcurra and Octavio Aburto-Oropeza (2015): Los manglares son productores de pargos. DataMares. InteractiveResource. https://doi.org/10.13022/M3F30F
• Matthew Thomas Costa, Isaí Dominguez-Guerrero, José Cota-Nieto, Exequiel Ezcurra, and Octavio Aburto-Oropeza (2015): Mangroves are snapper generators. DataMares. InteractiveResource. https://doi.org/10.13022/M3JS3D

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2023-11-09