The post-larval and juvenile fish assemblage in the Sukhothai Floodplain,Thailand

This study investigated abundance, species composition and spatial and temporal distributions of fish larvae and their relationship with some environmental variables in the Sukhothai floodplain in northern Thailand. Fish larvae were collected from 33 sampling stations on 8 occasions between August 2010 and October 2013. The study collected and identified 149 296 individuals, representing 32 families and 165 taxa. The species composition of larval fish was dominated by the Cyprinidae(47.27%), Cobitidae(7.88%), Siluridae(6.67%), Bagridae(6.06%) and Mastacembelidae(3.33%) families. The mostabundant larval species were the Striped flying barb Esomus metallicus(16.90%), the Siamese mud carpHenicorhynchus siamensis(8.48%) and the Sumatran river sprat Clupeichthys goniognathus(8.31%). The greatest abundance and species diversity of larvae were found when the river flow runs onto the floodplain. PCA and nMDS analysis revealed that the samples plot is associated with temporal distribution among years. The discharge was a major factor determining fish larvae assemblage and environmental variables in the Sukhothai floodplain. Four fish larval species were positively correlated with the samples for 2013. The result of the CCA ordination plot showed that only the discharge variable was strongly correlated with fish larvae abundance, especially two cyprinid R asbora species.