BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 17, Number 2, October 2016 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 553-557 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d170223 Short Communication: Conservation of mangrove gobies in Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia YULIADI ZAMRONI1,2,♥, KADARWAN SOEWARDI3, BAMBANG SURYOBROTO1, ZEEHAN JAAFAR4,5,♥♥ 1Department of Biology, Institut Pertanian Bogor, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia. Telp/Fax. (0251) 8625481, ♥email:
[email protected] 2Biology Study Programme, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Mataram. Mataram 83125, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia 3Department of Living Aquatic Resources Management, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia 4Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore. 14 Science Drive 4, S117543, Singapore. ♥♥email:
[email protected] 5Division of Fishes, Smithsonian Institution. PO Box 37012, National Museum of Natural History, MRC 159, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 USA Manuscript received: 30 May 2016. Revision accepted: 7 July 2016. Abstract. Zamroni Y, Soewardi K, Suryobroto B, Jaafar Z. 2016. Short Communication: Conservation of mangrove gobies in Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 17: 553-557. Ecosystems goods and services from mangrove forests are especially vital to coastal communities. Yet mangrove areas continue to be deforested at unprecedented rates. Using gobioid fishes associated with mangrove forests as focal organisms, we assessed their diversity in 14 selected sites within the Lesser Sunda group of islands. We applied Correspondence analysis to determine the relationships between ecosystems based on the occurrence of these fishes and complementarity analysis to identify the minimum number of sites to conserve maximum diversity based on a rarity algorithm. We recovered 55 gobioid fish species at these mangrove areas, and proposed six mangrove areas within the Lesser Sunda group of islands as areas of conservation priority: Loh Sebita, Oebelo, Bipolo, Lembar Bay, Selindungan, and Kawangu.