Abstract

A descriptive analysis of coral reef fishes on oceanic ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico was conducted to investigate the ecological basic and functional aspects of theses communities. The main objectives of the study were to describe the composition and trophic structure of the fish community on Campeche Bank reefs and to compare the results observed on the ecological descriptors between two years of study 2001 and 2013. Two reef cays of the Campeche Bank System in the western part of Yucatan Peninsula were surveyed for the same research team in both years. Fish abundance data were collected on line transects distributed on six sampling sites of each reef. The species richness, abundance, density and trophic structure of fish communities were calculated for each reef. One hundred and two fish species were registered (85 at Cayo Arcas and 69 at Cayo Triangulos) in 2001. The total species richness in 2013 was 85 for the two reefs (72 Cayo Arcas and 61 Cayo Triangulos). The average in the number of species per transect, the individuals per transect and the density were lower in the 2013 study respect to that of 2001. The trophic structure was dominated by the fish species feeding on plant and detritus and by zooplanctivores according to the fish abundance. There was not significant variation on community composition and trophic structure between the two reefs within years. The results show lower values in most of the ecological descriptors of the reef fish community composition in 2013 respect to 2001, highlight-ing the importance to protect the coral reefs of this region.

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