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Fish Metacomunity Structure Carrasco et al. 2024

Estuarine systems are highly productive ecosystems with diverse fish communities that provide valuable
ecosystem services. The structure and ecology of fish communities in the estuarine systems of the Mesoamerican
Barrier Reef System region (MBRS) is largely unknown. Here, the fish communities and their relationship with
environmental variables were investigated for the first time in sixteen estuarine systems along the Honduran
coast of the MBRS. The estuarine systems included estuarine lagoons and estuaries with different mouth dynamics,
such as permanently open estuarine systems (POE) and temporary open-closed estuarine systems
(TOCE). A total of 154 fish species were identified. Estuarine lagoons exhibited higher abundance and species
richness, with Karataska and Chachaguala having the highest species richness (~80 species). Overall, higher
diversity was observed in POE systems and during the open mouth phase, likely due to higher dispersion rates.
Fish species were classified into different functional groups based on their utilization of estuarine environments.
The most abundant category was marine fish (50.6 %), with marine stragglers and marine estuarine-opportunists
as the dominant guilds within this category. Freshwater, estuarine, and diadromous fish categories contributed
less but similarly. Fish communities in estuarine lagoons and estuaries showed clear differences, although they
shared some common species. Estuarine lagoons communities were dominated by the marine category and
marine-estuarine-opportunists, while those of estuaries were characterized by the freshwater category and
freshwater-estuarine-opportunists. The occupancy varied greatly, with some species present in multiple estuarine
systems and others restricted to a single system. Species contribution to β-diversity (SCBD) revealed that species
present in a single system made the greatest contribution. Local contribution to total β-diversity (LCBD) ranged
between 1.48 and 20.10 %, with the Chachaguala estuarine lagoon being the main contributor. In addition to
geomorphological features and estuarine mouth state, distance-based multivariate linear model (DistLM) showed
that salinity, pH, bottom vegetation, and dissolved oxygen contributed significantly in explaining the fish
metacommunity variation. This study shows the importance of environmental filtering in shaping local fish
communities in the MBRS estuarine systems. However, further research is needed to understand the role of
dispersion pathways and rates for the integral management of the estuarine fish metacommunity in the region.