Spatiotemporal abundance and diversity of bonyfishes in beach seines in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea

The changes of biodiversity, indicator species (IS) and catch per unit effort (CPUE) of bony fishes in beach seines in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea during 1996 to 2012 was investigated. Among the catch of 14 species/groups, kutum and mullet comprised 56.78% and 31.81% of the total catch. Minimum and maximum CPUE were 158.5±9.1 and 344.9±31.2 kg/haul and Shannon diversity was 0.57±0.02 and 0.92±0.02, respectively. There were significant differences in community composition of fishes in beach seines among three seining times (morning, afternoon and night time), three seining periods (1996-2000, 2000-2005 and 2005-2012), three regions (west, middle and east), and different seasons (in all cases MRPP, p