Distribution and community structure of fish in Obitsu-gawa River Estuary of inner Tokyo Bay, central Japan

The distribution and community structure of fish in Obitsu-gawa River Estuary of inner TokyoBay, central Japan was studied from May to December 2005 and March to April 2006. A total of 19,006individuals, represented by 25 species and some unidentified species under family Clupeidae, Cyprinidae,Gobiidae, Hemiramphidae, Mugilidae, Platycephidae, Pleuronectidae and Triglidae were collected. FamilyGobiidae had the most number of taxa with 13 genera and 10 species. Greatest fish abundancehappened in August and secondarily in April and May. Species richness was evident in the warmermonths particularly in May (17 taxa), August (21 taxa), September (15 taxa) and October (17 taxa).Marine teleosts significantly contributed to the species richness and abundance of fish, whichcorresponded to 52.9% (10,046 individuals) of the total catch while the estuarine fishes were the secondmost abundant group with 33.5% (6,372 individuals) of the total catch. Species dominance was acoherent feature of this community. The proportional contribution of marine teleosts to the fishcommunity decreased with increase distance upstream while that of estuarine fishes increased withincrease distance upstream. The developmental stages of gobies range from larvae to adult but juvenilesconstitute 77.06% of the total sample. The distribution of developmental stage of estuarine gobies wasinfluenced to a greater extent by variation in monthly water temperature and station or the interaction ofboth. Adult estuarine gobies had the tendency to aggregate in the middle estuary reflecting their hightolerance to a wide range of water salinity inherent in this station but avoided the lower estuary mostlikely due to the predominance of high salinity waters.