Assessment and Composition of Fish in the River District Maro Merauke

Departement Management of Aquatic Resource, Agriculture of Faculty, Musamus University

^* Corresponding author: melmambessy@unmus.ac.id

Abstract

Maro River is one of the major rivers in Merauke Regency that has a width of about 43-900 m and length of 300 km. The purpose of this study is to find out the type and composition of fish caught using gill net in Maro River, Merauke Regency. This study was conducted in Maro River, Merauke Regency from May to June 2014. It was conducted using survey method. The data analysis included: species composition, relative abundance, availability frequency, diversity index and dominance index. The results of showed 1,084 fish in 17 species with the following composition; 490 of Kurtus gulliveri species (37,01%), 212 of Eleutheronema tetradactylum species (20,33%), 170 of Polydactylus plebeius species (16,30%), 75 of crassilabris Cinetodus species (7,19%), 64 of Cinetodus froggatti species (6,14%), 37 of Argyrosomus amoyensis species (3,55%), 20 of Mugil cephalus species (1,92%), 15 of Megalops cyprinoides species (1,53%), 15 of Thryssa scratchleyi species (1,4%), 12 of Lebtobrama sp species (1,15%), 9 of Lates calcarifer species (0,86%), 7 of Marilyna meraukensis species (0,67%), 7 of Scomberomorus commerson species (0,67%), 5 of Nibea squamosal species (0,48%), 4 of Rhinoptera javanica species (0,38%), 3 of Harpadon microchir species (0,29%) and 1 of Datnioides campbelli species (0,10%). Based on the availability frequency, there are 37 species with a percentage of 100%, 37 species with 67% and 7 species with 33%. The diversity of fish has a moderate value of 1<H’<3. The obtained dominance index value is close to 0, then it is stated that there is no species found to be dominant.