Abstract

The small-scale fishery is important for its socioeconomic and environmental impact. Through its dynamism, in terms of target resource is concerned, has led to the overexploitation traditionally fish resources and the extraction of new populations. Therefore, assessment of their catches in view of the effort, main gear, all species caught, long time series, functional groups and geographical features that generate variations are critical. We analyzed data collected from the artisanal fishery from 1994 to 2008 for the northern Caribbean Sea of Colombia in the area between the rivers Magdalena and Palomino. The 196 fish taxa recorded in the catches were categorized into six major functional groups (demersal and pelagic divided into large, medium and small) for evaluation. We analyzed the catch per unit effort (CPUE) for each of the groups, ecoregions (Gulf of Salamanca, Tayrona and Palomino) and gears (longline, gillnet, and beach seine) and a community analysis to evaluate spatial and temporal changes in the community. The Gulf of Salamanca is important in the capture of medium and small demersal species due to its proximity to an estuarine system and the low selectivity of the gear. Also, the community analysis, multivariate analysis non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) showed no clear pattern of variation while similarity analysis showed significant temporal differences in the structure of fishes. Finally, we observed that both pelagic and demersal domain tend to diminish over time.

PDF Preview