The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island
nation in Southeast Asia on Ceylon with annual fish and seafood
exports in the tens of megatons. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
are a recently widespread way of protecting marine ecosystems,
but protection here is very ineffective or de facto
non-existent and many areas are just "paper parks". At the same
time, effectively protected reefs increase the biomass and
species richness of fish communities, which is important for
maintaining the profitability and health of ecosystems.
This work has a research part and a practical part. In the
first part, the work is focused on summarizing knowledge about
MPAs on a global scale, about fish communities and about
methods of measuring biodiversity. Furthermore, the situation
regarding MPA in Sri Lanka is described here. The second part
is devoted to the comparison of the species richness of
selected localities and the description of the relationship
between species richness and coral coverage.
Three MPAs were compared, namely Tangalle, Polhena and
Kayankerni, which represent two different categories of MPAs
with different focus and degree of protection. Kayankerni was
the richest in species and with the greatest abundance of fish,
followed by Polhena and Tangalle. The most numerous families
were Labridae and Pomacentridae, the most numerous species was
Neopomacentrus azysron. The accumulation curves of Tangalle and
Polhena differ slightly from each other, while the increase in
the number of species is much more pronounced in Kayankerni. A
significant relationship was found between species richness and
the amount of coverage of the bottom by living corals.