#biodiversit

Samples have been taken from fishery landings on the fishers’ return to estimate fish and other aquatic animals diversity. Specimens were caught with various types of gears deployed in continental shelf waters of Côte d’Ivoire by the artisanal fishers residing at Sassandra (in the southwestern part of this country), some 272 kilometres away from Abidjan, the capital city. These gears include the drifting gillnet, stationary gillnet, bottom gillnet, beach seine,purse seine and longline. Here, we present the data collected from October 2017 to March 2019. The results indicated that overall species observed numbered 112 and comprised fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and gastropods. Fish were the most abundant species, accounting for 92.86 % of total species observed in the landings. An attempt was made at comparing our data with the catch data collected a year earlier by the local Office for Aquaculture and Fisheries Statistics (the “Bureau Aquaculture et Pêche”, BAP – Sassandra). Confirmation of fish dominating the catches was obtained, as fish accounted for 95.13 % of total specimens landed and for 99.29 % of the yield, far exceeding Crustaceans, of which pink shrimp Penaeus notialis Pérez-Farfante, 1967 were the commonest. Clupeids, Carangids, Scombrids, Sciaenids, Polynemids and Haemulid species accounted for the main families among fishes, as they heavily contributed to taxon richness. The Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’ = 1.75) was relatively low, suggesting the predominance of at least one species in the catches, namely the Sardinellas.