Check List 11(5): e19350, doi: 10.15560/11.5.1751
Fishes from Lake Yaxhá, Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Petén, Guatemala
Christian Barrientos‡, Diego Elías§, Yasmín Quintana|‡ Wildlife Conservation Society, Equatorial Guinea Program Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala§ Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala Southeastern Louisiana University, United States of America| Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala Consejo Nacional de Áreas Protegidas, Guatemala
Corresponding author: Christian Barrientos ( cbarrientos@wcs.org ) © 2017 Christian Barrientos, Diego Elías, Yasmín Quintana. 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:
Barrientos C, Elías D, Quintana Y (2015) Fishes from Lake Yaxhá, Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Petén, Guatemala. Check List 11(5): 1751. https://doi.org/10.15560/11.5.1751 |  |
Abstract
The Mayan Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected area in Guatemala. Lake Yaxhá is located inside the core zone. Using electrofishing, seines and gillnets we assessed the fish richness and community in 2011. We collected 18 species distributed in seven families, with Cichlidae (seven species) and Poecilidae (five species) the most specious. We evaluated the effectiveness of electrofishing to sample the most important fish in the artisanal fishery in Petén, Petenia splendida, with September being the month with the highest capture per unit of effort. Lake Yaxhá assemblage was similar to the Usumacinta through a hierarchical cluster analysis, despite being located in the Mopan-Hondo basin. Lake Yaxhá is the only system in the area that does not have non-native fish species, emphasizing the importance of conservation of this lentic system in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve.
Keywords
ichthyofauna; Central America; Mayan Biosphere Reserve; electrofishing; artisanal fishery