Fish fauna of coral reef waters of the Xisha Islands

In May 1998, May 1999 and May 2003, three survey cruises were carried out in eight coral reef waters (Bei Reef, Yongxin Island, Chenhang Island, Huaguang Reef, Ianghua Reef, Jinyin Island, Dong Island and Yuzhu Reef) by handline, longline and bottom gillnet fishing.261species of Fishes were caught in these reef waters, 78.93% of which were reef fish species, 33 of which were common species occurring in at least 6 reef waters, and species similarity coefficients between various two reefs were less than 41%.Thus, high diversity and low species similarity are two main characteristics of fish fauna of the eight reefs.Compared with Nansha Islands(1998~1999), south-westers continental shelf waters of the Nansha Islands (1991) and northern of South China sea, species similarity coefficients are 34.0%, 5.1% and 6.8%, respectively.