Impact of a dam in the neotropics: what can be learned from young‐of‐the‐year fish assemblages in tributaries of the River Sinnamary (French Guiana, South America)?

1. The aim of this paper is to assess the usefulness of surveying young fish assemblages in tributaries of the Sinnamary River (French Guiana, South America) as a means of assessing fish species diversity and monitoring environmental change in a neotropical river subjected to hydrodam operations. 2. This work confirms that the tributaries of the Sinnamary River are nurseries for more than half the fish species present in the river. 3. It shows that in natural conditions the young fish assemblages at the beginning of the dry season are overwhelmingly dominated by Characiformes, but that species of other orders are favoured in the impacted sections. 4. This study confirms that the evaluation of the reproductive success of the different fish species over large river stretches at the end of the rainy season appears to be an appropriate method for detecting the immediate effects of flow disturbances on fish communities. 5. The results suggest that it is more informative and less time‐consuming to consider the abundance of juveniles only, and to group them at the order level instead of calculating diversity indices. 6. The relative abundance of Characiformes juveniles at the end of the rainy season seems a cost‐efficient way of assessing the hydrological impact of the dam on the Sinnamary River, and this may be the case for other neotropical rivers where these methods may be generally applicable. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.