Do different seagrass species support distinct fish communities in south-eastern Australia?

Between spring 1998 and autumn 1999, a fine mesh seine net was used to sample fish communities at three locations in south-eastern Australian estuaries, two located near Sydney [Botany Bay (BB) and Port Hacking (PH)] and one located approximately 150 km to the south [Sussex Inlet (SI)]. At each location, fish were collected from adjacent beds of the seagrasses Posidonia australis Hooker and Zostera capricorni Ascherson. These seagrass species differ markedly in morphology and life history. Fish communities displayed significant differences between seagrass species with respect to abundances and lengths of economically important species, and the structure of assemblages at locations in PH and BB, but not in SI. Differences appeared to be related to the recruitment of juveniles of several inshore species, such as Acanthopagrus australis (Gunther), Rhabdosargus sarba (Forskaal) and Girella tricuspidata (Quoy & Gaimard) to Zostera beds at BB and PH during spring and early summer. These differences were not evident over the wider spatial scale, however, the SI location did support a distinct assemblage of fish compared with locations in PH and BB. These results suggested that local recruitment events and differences in estuarine geomorphology may be important in structuring these seagrass fish communities.