Reef fish diversity components as indicators of cumulative effects in a highly impacted fringe reef

The main goal of our research was to determine which indicators describing cumulative stress might better explain the differences observed in diversity components of reef fish assemblages off Havana City, Cuba. A total of 35,078 individuals of 119 species were counted in 480 stationary point censuses. Counts were distributed among three zones with different levels of pollution and four habitats with different wave stress. Four indexes of diversity components (S, H′, J′ and PIE) were calculated and correlative analyses performed to explore the best indicators of cumulative effects explaining observed variation. High correlation was found between all diversity components and two indexes of cumulative effects (ICE) built after distinct criteria. In the first case, pollution and wave action were combined following an interactive model. In the second case, an empirical ICE was obtained by totaling the abundance indicators of three groups of organisms, namely sponges, sabellid polychaetes and filamentous algae.