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Distribution and abundance of benthic macroorganisms in and around Visakhapatnam Harbour on the east coast of India

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Distribution and abundance of benthic macroorganisms in and around Visakhapatnam Harbour on the east coast of India
 
Creator Musale, A.S.
Desai, D.V.
Sawant, S.S.
Venkat, K.
Anil, A.C.
 
Subject AQUATIC COMMUNITIES::Benthos
POPULATION STUDIES::Nutrition and feeding habits
POPULATION STUDIES::Population structure
 
Description Benthic communities form an important component of the marine food chain. Their occurrence also provides information on the health of the ecosystem. A study was carried out to understand the distribution and abundance of macrobenthos along with sediment characteristics and physicochemical parameters in Visakhapatnam Harbour, a major port along the east coast of India. In all 84 macrobenthic taxa were reported from the port area of which 60 were polychaetes and 24 were other invertebrate taxa. Our observations revealed an increase in the number of polychaete species observed over the last 20 years from this region. An earlier study reported 38 polychaete species in 1975 and a year later the number of polychaete species reported was 12, indicating an increase in the number of polychaete species in the present study by about 150%. The macrobenthic abundance and dominance of species varied with the seasons. Pre-monsoon was dominated by Cirratulus sp., during monsoon tanaids were dominant indicating a seasonal shift in the occurrence and dominance of macrobenthos. During post-monsoon, Cossura coasta was dominant followed by Nephtys dibranchis and amphipods. Sediment characteristics (sand, silt and clay), organic carbon and dissolved oxygen were the important factors influencing the abundance and species diversity. The abundance of macrobenthic forms also varied with inner and outer harbour region. Higher species diversity was observed in the outer harbour suggesting the outer harbour has semi-polluted conditions such as higher dissolved oxygen (DO) and salinity, low nutrients (nitrite, nitrate and silicate) and low organic carbon in the sediment.
 
Date 2015-07-14T04:21:53Z
2015-07-14T04:21:53Z
2015
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, vol.95(2); 2015; 215-231
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/4735
 
Language en
 
Rights An edited version of this paper was published ? Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 2013. All efforts have been made to respect the copyright to the best of our knowledge. Inadvertent omissions, if brought to our notice, stand for correction and withdrawal of document from this repository
 
Publisher Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom