Comparison of fish catches from a buoyant pop net and a beach seine net in a shallow seagrass habitat

A large (25 m2), remote-release buoyant pop net, 1989), and to do this, a buoyant pop net was designed floorless to permit normal behaviour by benthic fish, and a with the aim of making a more complete cat&. The beach seine net were comparing the catch seine net is also unwieldy when fish need to be collected the 2 net types. Both nets were made of 1 mm mesh, aimed at catchina fish from 10 to 100 mm Iona. The Q ~ Q net cauaht from defined The pop net permits 1 . more figh than the selne net, mainlydbecause 9 tlmes mzre tlon of fish from such areas, for example from experiFavonigobius lateraLis were caught in the pop net. Apart from mental plots in which habitat has been manipulated. species such as E lateralis that dwell on the sea bed, the seine ~~~~~~t pop nets usually consist of 4 mesh walls, net catches small fish as well as the pop net, and for some species is a faster, cheaper collection method for survey work. depressed prior to release, and a mesh floor. Such traps H ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ , as net catches can about rank can be lifted clear of the water to collect ensnared fish. order of abundances of species, its main use may be in colSmall pop nets (area 5.6 m2) have been used in vegeletting presence'absence data. The POP net gives a more tated backwaters of a river (Dewey et al. 1989) while a accurate estimate of bottom-dwelling species, and is useful larger net (14,5 m2) was tested for estimating fish where fish need to be collected from small, deflned areas such as ex~erimental ~ l o t s . abundance associated with artificial structures in lakes (Larson et al. 1986). In the present study, a floorless