Spatial overlap of the diurnal freshwater fish community in the Media Luna wetland system, Rioverde, S.L.P., Mexico

Abstract

The Media Luna wetland is the most representative and most affected by tourism and management actions in the Llanura de Rioverde, S.L.P. It contains 13 fish species, two of them are nocturnal and eleven diurnal. This study considers only the diurnal species. From these, the most relevant are five local endemic, one native widely distributed and five introduced species. In order to determine the degree of spatial overlap, 54 sub-aquatic transects per sampling session were conducted from 1998 and 1999. The fish population distribution per age class (adult, juvenile and larvae) and the similitude between species pairs were analyzed and estimated for the habitat variables: sector, depth, and vegetation. Adult and juvenile fish tended to overlap for all the variables, whereas the larvae segregated for sector but overlap for depth and vegetation. There was a high overlap between native and introduced species for at least one their life stages. The endemic species that showed the highest spatial overlap with the introduced species was Ataeniobius toweri, whereas Oreochromis sp. was the introduced one with the highest overlap with the native species. All of the endemic species are endangered; was thus, the possible affectation caused by the spatial overlap between endemic and introduced species has a special interest.