Hydrographic, geomorphologic and fish assemblage relationships in coastal lagoons

In this study, 40 Atlanto-Mediterranean coastal lagoons were analyzed in order to evaluate the extent to which their ecological characteristics depend on hydrographic, trophic or geomorphologic features. Fish species richness increases with lagoon volume and the openness parameter, which characterizes the potential influence of the sea on general lagoon hydrology and is related to the total transversal area of the inlets, which connect the lagoon to the sea. On the other hand, the number of species decreases exponentially with the phosphate concentration in water. The fishing yield increases with the chlorophyll a concentration in the water column and exponentially with shoreline development. With respect to the fish assemblage composition, geomorphologic features alone explain 22% of the variance in the canonical analyses and an additional 75% when including the hydrographic and trophic characteristics of the lagoon, the latter on its own explaining only 3% of the observed differences.