Check List 10(6): 1401-1413, doi: 10.15560/10.6.1401
Marine and estuarine fish diversity in the inner Gulf of Nicoya, Pacific coast of Costa Rica, Central America
expand article infoAtsunobu Murase‡, Arturo Angulo§, Yusuke Miyazaki|, William Bussing§, Myrna López§
‡ Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Japan§ Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica| Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History, Japan

Corresponding author: Atsunobu Murase ( atsunobu.m@gmail.com )

© 2017 Atsunobu Murase, Arturo Angulo, Yusuke Miyazaki, William Bussing, Myrna López.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Murase A, Bussing W, Sibaja A, Miyazaki Y, López M (2014) Marine and estuarine fish diversity in the inner Gulf of Nicoya, Pacific coast of Costa Rica, Central America. Check List 10(6): 1401-1413. https://doi.org/10.15560/10.6.1401
Open Access
Abstract
A checklist of the marine and estuarine fishes of the inner part of the Gulf of Nicoya, Pacific coast of Costa Rica, Central America, was compiled by examining a museum fish collection, resulting in 72 families and 274 species. Of these species, 127 (46.4%) were marine species and 147 (53.6%) were estuarine-associated species. In terms of their life history and considering the habitat type classification, 188 (almost 70% of the total) were categorized as species inhabiting soft-bottom habitats, reflecting the large estuarine environment and rich fish diversity of the Gulf despite its relatively small area in the tropical Eastern Pacific region. Furthermore, the list contains 13 threatened species of IUCN Red List, which need further research to understand their abundance and their exposure to habitat loss in the Gulf. Further detailed studies on its fish fauna and habitat are needed to better understand and conserve biodiversity within the whole Gulf.
Keywords
Costa Rica; estuary; Gulf of Nicoya; ichthyofauna; marine biodiversity