Gradiente longitudinal na estrutura da assembleia de peixes de um reservatório de acumulação: Capivari

Abstract

This study evaluated the hypothesis that the fish assemblage on reservoir of Hydropower Plant Governador Pedro Viriato Parigot de Souza (Capivari) is structured along its longitudinal axis, forming two or three distinct zones, which is influenced by environmental variables. For this, samples of fishes and abiotic variables were carried out quarterly between January 2004 and October 2008, in three sites (dam, intermediate and backwater) along the longitudinal gradient of the reservoir. The major variation gradients of assemblage structure (pure) were summarized with the non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) and compared longitudinal with the multi-response permutation procedure (MRPP). Further, it was examined the existence of indicator species at each site. In sequence, the variation gradients of assemblage structure related with abiotic variables (restricted) were extracted under the linear constraints imposed by these variables on canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). The congruence between the pure and restricted gradients was then evaluated with the Mantel test. We captured 30.085 individuals of which the fluvial local had greater richness. Ordination of NMS and MRPP test showed that the gradients of the pure structure of the fish assemblage were differentiated on longitudinal axis of reservoir, and identified differences in fluvial site from others, found greater preference of species for this site. The ordering of the CCA had a greater influence of water transparency, followed by pH and dissolved oxygen, which was consistent with the ordering of the NMS by Mantel test. Thus, we can conclude that the structure of the fish assemblage in Capivari Reservoir presented zonation pattern, with two distinct zones in a longitudinal gradient, which found greater preference of the species by fluvial area, being mainly influenced by lower values water transparency and higher levels of pH and dissolved oxygen in this site.