96 
Fishery Bulletin 107(1) 
Table 3 
Correlations (r) and probability values (P) between annual fish catch in Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound and mean 
summer temperatures (June, July, August) and mean half-year temperatures (May, June, July, August, September, October) for 
each location (1987-2000). Catch columns are the total numbers of warm-water fishes caught in each location per year through 
both seining and trawl sampling. 
Year 
Narragansett Bay 
Long Island Sound 
Catch 
Temperature °C 
Catch 
Temperature °C 
Summer 
Semi-annual 
Summer 
Semi-annual 
1987 
75 
18.77 
16.83 
21 
23.80 
15.20 
1988 
138 
19.16 
16.59 
392 
20.57 
17.80 
1989 
138 
19.76 
17.32 
200 
24.74 
18.09 
1990 
289 
19.25 
17.34 
150 
21.33 
17.50 
1991 
144 
20.16 
18.38 
105 
21.51 
16.77 
1992 
137 
18.69 
16.98 
109 
22.87 
15.74 
1993 
58 
19.38 
17.53 
97 
21.17 
17.62 
1994 
1794 
20.20 
17.33 
253 
21.99 
18.23 
1995 
91 
20.09 
19.16 
94 
20.37 
14.82 
1996 
143 
18.80 
17.05 
952 
18.73 
19.91 
1997 
213 
18.51 
16.75 
335 
17.94 
19.51 
1998 
411 
18.43 
17.29 
1267 
22.93 
19.83 
1999 
457 
19.73 
17.77 
780 
20.98 
19.13 
2000 
550 
18.99 
16.83 
1927 
20.58 
20.05 
r 
0.346 
0.071 
0.230 
0.746 
p 
0.048 
0.105 
0.767 
0.004 
fish ( Synodus foetens), spotfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon 
ocellatus), and striped burrfish ( Chilomycterus schoepfii ) 
were all recorded only in Long Island Sound during the 
years studied but are known to occur in Narragansett 
Bay as well. Spotfin butterflyfish have often been seen 
in Narragansett Bay (Meng and Powell, 1999), and 
catch records for inshore lizardfish were extremely high 
during the summer and fall of 2006. The data presented 
in this study may therefore represent only a snapshot 
of the areas that were sampled and may not completely 
represent the ecosystems being studied. Because of 
data limitations due to difficult sampling areas and 
a lack of frequency of sampling, it was important to 
look at overall estimates of species diversity, not just 
the actual numbers of species that were caught. The 
calculated species richness indicates that the number 
of warm-water species in the two locations is the same. 
Although the actual numbers of species found in each 
area are not equal (26 in Narragansett Bay vs. 28 in 
Long Island Sound), many additional species have been 
found by local aquarists and scuba divers in both areas 
that do not appear in the data sets. Examples of these 
include fishes seen mostly in rocky or vegetated habitats 
where sampling is difficult, such as foureye butterflyfish 
( Chaetodon capistratus) (Allen, 1985) and doctorfish 
(Acanthurus chirurgus ) (Allen, 1985). 
The annual abundance of warm-water species recorded 
in Narragansett Bay was similar to the abundances in 
Long Island Sound among the years used in this study 
(1987-2000). Annual abundance is correlated between 
locations for all warm-water fishes (omitting 1994 as an 
outlier), and for three of the five most abundant species. 
Despite these correlations, the multivariate analyses 
provided evidence of distinct species compositions in 
each location and indicated that the interannual vari- 
ability in timing of occurrence is not correlated between 
areas. Based on the MDS analysis Atlantic moonfish, 
planehead filefish, and northern puffer contributed to 
the similarity in species composition and abundance 
between locations in the multivariate analyses. In con- 
trast, the moderately and least abundant species, as 
well as the species that occurred in only one of the 
sampling areas, contributed to the differences in warm- 
water fishes present between locations. The recorded 
absence of species that were knowingly present in the 
estuaries, such as doctorfish and foureye butterflyfish, 
likely led to the resulting differences in the MDS plots 
between estuaries. 
Based on the elusive nature of the juvenile warm- 
water fishes, the data set used for this study may have 
been compiled with insufficient sampling effort. For 
data sets with adequate effort, the species accumulation 
curves reach asymptotic levels quickly (Thompson et 
al., 2003). However, neither Narragansett Bay nor Long 
Island Sound data exhibited this pattern, which means 
that there were likely more species in the systems 
than there were samples to represent them. Species 
accumulation also occurs more quickly with increas- 
