Abstract:Based on the data collected from the central and southern Yellow Sea in 2006, the fish community composition, spatio-temporal niche width, spatio-temporal niche overlap and the Index of Relative Importance (IRI) were analyzed by qualitative and quantitative methods. Results showed that there were 57 species in total in four seasons, of which 39 species were caught in winter, spring 42, summer 31 and autumn 40 species. There were 22 common species appearing in each reason, which belonged to 14 families and 20 genera. The value of temporal-spatial niche breadth was higher than one, followed by descending order of 10 species which were Lophius litulon, Pseudosciaena pohyactis, Stromateoides argenieus, Myctophum pterotum, Trichiurus muticus, Erisphex pottii, Liparis tanakae, Astroconger myriaster, Argyrosomus argentatus and Trichiurus haumela. The biomass of 10 species was increased by season changing in the central and southern Yellow Sea. The spatio-temporal niche overlap value was highest between L. tanakae and Conger myriaster and lowest between Trichiurus japonicus and C. myriaster. Lophius litulon was found to have the maximum value of spatio-temporal niche width, whereas Engraulis japonicus had the maximum value of IRI. Therefore the ranking of importance of main species in the community was different. Compared with the IRI, the spatio-temporal niche width can reflect the evenness of fish biomass at different time and space and reflect the changes of fish community in more detail.
