Effects of a nuclear power plant thermal discharge on habitat complexity and fish community structure in Ilha Grande Bay, Brazil

Tatiana Pires Teixeira (1) , Leonardo Mitrano Neves (1) , Francisco Gerson Araújo (1)

1 UFRRJ - Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro

Fish communities and habitat structures were evaluated by underwater visual censuses a rocky location impacted by thermal discharge (I) and at two control locations, one in a bed (C1) and the other in a rocky shore with higher structural complexity (C2). Habitat indicators and fish communities exhibited significant differences between the impacted and control locations, with the impacted one showing a significant decrease in fish species richness and diversity, as well as a decrease in benthic cover. At the I location, only 13 fish species were described, and the average water temperature was 32 ± 0.4 °C, compared with 44 species at C1 (25.9 ± 0.3 °C) and 33 species at C2 (24.6 ± 0.2 °C). Significant differences in fish communities among locations were found by ANOSIM with , sp and typical of location I, while and were typical of the control locations. Our study shows that thermal pollution alters benthic cover and influences fish assemblages by altering composition and decreasing richness.

Mots clés: rocky shore; habitat; Brazil.; Brazil; Thermal pollution; community composition; fish; visual census

Tatiana Pires Teixeira, Leonardo Mitrano Neves, Francisco Gerson Araújo. Effects of a nuclear power plant thermal discharge on habitat complexity and fish community structure in Ilha Grande Bay, Brazil. Marine Environmental Research, 2009, 68 (4), pp.188. ⟨10.1016/j.marenvres.2009.06.004⟩. ⟨hal-00563082⟩