Could fish biological biodiversity (beyond functional biodiversity) be meaningful to evaluate environmental health and quality in Martinique's ecosystems?
Fish species richness alone is not a great indicator to characterize the ecological condition of an ecosystem. There are many examples were degraded sites present a higher species richness. Plus, species richness alone is not sensitive enough to alert as soon as possible management bodies on the degradation of an ecosystem. That’s why functional biodiversity indices are preferred in that sense. However in Martinique, Caye d’Olbian (one of the ‘healthiest’ reefs in Martinique) often has a higher species richness than other sites. Sites in the south have been recently sampled for eDNA analysis (January 2021), the results will give a more exhaustive picture of the fish species richness from Caye d'Olbian to Pointe Borgnesse.
