Assessing the efficiency of active sampling methods for fishes in neotropical streams of the Caatinga Biome, Northeast Brazil

ABSTRACT

This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of electric fishing and seine-net/dip-net to obtain quantitative and qualitative data on the fish community of low conductivity streams in the semi-arid region of Bahia, Brazil. Samplings were collected in 15 streams in the region of Chapada Diamantina. Two homogeneous stretches with 50 m each were selected and closed with blocking nets. Zippin analysis was used to evaluate the suitability of each capture method. Differences in abundance, richness, composition of species, and length of specimens captured were compared for each method. Twenty-nine species were collected, twenty-four using electric fishing, and twenty-one using seine-net/dip-net. There were no significant differences between methods as for abundance, richness, composition of species, and length of the individual captured. There were no significant differences in capturability. Both methods have high values of sample efficiency (SE). Therefore, electric fishing and seine-net/dip-net are equally effective on describing qualitatively and quantitatively the fish community. It is noteworthy that for an ideal choice of collection method, the geomorphological characteristics of the streams must be taken into account since they exert a direct influence on both collection methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Electric fishing
• sampling methods
• streams
• dip-net
• seine-net

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank CAPES (Process: 2013.2) for the scholarship granted and the Graduate Program in Zoology from UEFS for logistical support. We would also like to thank the members of the Ichthyology and Fisheries Laboratory for their support during sampling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2024.2380168.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Scholarship CAPES.