Fish Abundance And Distribution Of Three Water Bodies

Fish Abundance And Distribution Of Three Water Bodies

Abstract

Fish cornucopia and distribution of three water bodies videlicet Onah lake, Anwai swash and Swash Niger at string point was studied. Fish samples were collected using gill nets, traps, and hook and line between July- December, 2013. One thousand four hundred and eighty seven fish samples were collected and brought to the laboratory at Delta state university for farther identification using identification key. The family Mochokidae was the most abundant with 441 individualities from the three slice stations followed by Cichlidae with 374 individualities. The least represented families were Notopteridae and Dasyatidae with 3 individualities each. On the species position, Oreochromis niloticus had the loftiest number with 118 individualities followed by Synondontis occeilifer with 104 individualities, while the least representation were Hemichromis bimaculatus and Aechenoglanis biscutatus with 1 individualities each. The rich assemblage of fish species collected indicates that these waterbodies have the eventuality for fish product if duly managed. It’s hoped that the information gathered will be useful for unborn planning and operation of the fisheries coffers of Onah lake, Anwai swash and Swash Niger at Cable point

Chapter One

Preface

Fisheries coffers are on the reduction in Nigeria due to over exploitation and shy operation of her littoral waters( Lawson and Olusanya, 2010). For sustainability of these coffers, an acceptable knowledge of species composition, relative cornucopia of her water bodies must be understood and laboriously pursued( Lawson and Olusanya, 2010).

Different species in a given area is the abecedarian unit in which to assess the unity of an terrain and community used in conservation studies to determine the perceptivity of the ecosystems and their resident species while rare species is relative to other species in a given community and are generally describe for a single tropic position( Lawson and Olusanya, 2010).

Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural submarine coffers in Marine, Estuarine and Freshwater surroundings. The brackish factors are within expansive swash systems, lakes, flood tide plans and budgets scattered over the entire land face area of over 4,212, 500ha( Ita, 1993) as cited by( Obasohan and Oransaye, 2006). Nigeria also has( 8) littoral countries videlicet; Ogun State, Lagos State, Ondo State, Delta State, Bayelsa State, Akwa- Ibom State and Cross River state.

The fish fauna of the Nigerian freshwater system has been the focus of exploration for relatively occasionally. Some of the experimenter are Welman( 1984); Banks etal.,( 1965); Akinyemi( 19850; Idodo- umeh( 1987) and Ita( 1987). These studies concentrated more on gutters, with lower attention on the lakes and wet lands yet they produced a variety of reports on the Nigerian Freshwater.