Abstract

The coastal lagoons are ecosystems which constitute transitional zones between terrestrial and marine environments. Furthermore, they are places of predilection where essential fish habitats are generally located. These habitats are defined as those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding or growth to maturity. Substrate for most of these areas is generally sea grass bed. The aim of the present study is to analyze the spatial and temporal variations in fish assemblages from sea grass beds of the Yalahau coastal lagoon in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Monthly samples were collected between January and June 2005, during three climatic seasons: a cold season (from November to April) and a warm season (from May to September), at three sites of the lagoon (Punta Caracol, Punta Dzotz and Isla Pájaros). A total of 26540 organisms from 70 species were collected, which were distributed in 31 families and 48 genus. Lagodon rhomboides (Sparidae) and Orthopristis chrysoptera (Haemulidae) were the dominant species as well as for spatial than for temporal analyze. From the different ecological parameters analyzed, the higher values for diversity (2.75 bits/individual) and evenness (0.486) were observed in Punta Caracol. The values of diversity and evenness were generally higher during the cold season. However, no significant differences in the values of these two parameters were observed between sites or seasons

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