law (Mangrove Trimming and Preservation Act of 1996), resulting in a mean 46% and 50% reduction in
canopy coverage and litter fall, respectively. However neither the abundance nor species composition of
fish in trimmed versus control plots were significantly different (Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA’s
for paired plot differences in fish density and biomass; nonmetric multidimensional scaling, and ANOSIM)
suggesting that fish did not respond to mangrove canopy damage. Our results show that due to rather
high spatial and temporal variability in fish abundance, it would be difficult to detect any but extreme
changes of these taxa in the mangrove intertidal zone, and this may be a common feature of the fish
communities of mangrove intertidal zones and other coastal systems. We suggest that improved use of
fish as indicators of intertidal habitat quality would benefit from improved information on environmental
factors which determine fish distribution and abundance in these areas. Moreover, since a majority
of the fish in the intertidal zone is habitat generalists, we propose that individual-level measures of fish
response to habitat quality may be more effective than fish abundance.