Larval and juvenile fish assemblages in constructed breakwater sandy beach

Abstract

To determine the impact of breakwater construction on fish assemblages, larval and juvenile fishes were used to interpretation. The study was conducted in the inter-tidal zone constructed breakwater and natural sandy habitats of Pakmeng Beach, at Sikao District, Trang Province. The morphology of water bottom showed that differ between the front areas of breakwater construction and natural beach. The bottom profiles at in front of natural beach is seem to be deep immediately from shore and connect to a flat sand dune, whereas in front of breakwater construction area was shallow and flatten. Fish assemblage data had showed the average number of larval and juvenile fishes no differ between the two habitats, whereas the number of taxa of juvenile fishes was higher significantly in the inter-tidal zone of breakwater constructed area (Mann-Whitney U=11.5, p=0.017) Even though, our study have revealed the application of fish assemblage data to asses the impact of constructed breakwater. Current study have limited on data collection, not entire seasonal of larval and juvenile fishes abundance. Using our interpretations in other study sites is necessary to collected more frequency both beach morphological and fish assemblage changes.