[Niche and interspecific association of nekton in the south coastal waters of Cangnan, Zhe-jiang, China].

In this paper, the interaction between the species Population were analyzed based on the data of major nekton species in the south coastal waters of Cangnan in spring and autumn 2014. A series of methods including niche breadth, niche overlap, χ2 - test and association coefficient (AC) based on a 2x2 contingency table were used. The results showed that the major nekton species in the south coastal waters of Cangnan were classified into three groups, i.e. wide niche breadth species, moderate niche breadth species and narrow niche breadth species based on the niche breadth values. The wide niche breadth species of nekton were Harpodon nehereus, Portunus trituberculatus, mantis shrimp and other 2 species. The moderate niche breadth species of nekton were Collichthys lucidus, Parapenaeopsis hardwickii, Parapenaeopsis tenella and other 5 species. While the species with narrow niche breadths were Charybdis japonica, Amblychaeturichthys hexanema, Palaemon gravieri and other 7 species. There were great differences in the niche overlap values among the major nekton populations, with the maximum value of 0.93 and the minimum of 0, which indicated that resource utilization competition in some nekton might exist. The results of variance ratio analysis for major nekton in the south coastal waters of Cangnan showed that they were significantly positively correlated. χ2 - test results showed that there were significantly interspecific association for 78 species pairs (χ2≥3.841), among which more association coefficients (AC) of species pairs are positive.