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Underwater ecological observations in the Gulf of Mannar off Tuticorin-VII. General topography and ecology of the rocky bottom

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Relation http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/926/
 
Title Underwater ecological observations in the Gulf of
Mannar off Tuticorin-VII. General topography and ecology of the rocky bottom
 
Creator Mahadevan, S
Nayar, K Nagappan
 
Subject Marine Environment
 
Description IT is evident from the valuable reports on the fauna and flora of the Gulf of Mannar,
brought out in 1903-1906 by Herdman and others as also from the contributions of
Thomas (1884), Thurston (1894), Hornell (1922), Gravely (1927) and Pearson
et al. (1929), to mention only a few, that this area is remarkable for its
richness and variety of fauna and that the inshore sea-bottom in the Gulf forms an
ideal habitat for the growth of the shell fishes which sustain a good fishery. The
records of observations made along Ceylon coast during the latter part of 1904 by
Hornell (vide Herdman, 1905) revealed that considerable changes took place periodically
in regard to the biological and physical conditions of the sea-bottom there.
As for the Indian side many years have lapsed since Hornell (1922) gave his first
evaluation of the faunistic conditions and idea of the habitat of the economically
important molluscs of the Gulf of Mannar. It was not known since then whether
any notable changes had taken place, in the length of time that had elapsed, here
also like its counterpart off the Ceylon coast and if so to what extent. An opportunity
arose in 1961 when the F.A.O. sponsored a collaborative scheme for conducting
direct underwater observations using SCUBA (Photographs 1 & 3) to study the
area between 10-27 metres depth off Tuticorin. In addition to carrying out the
above collaborative work assigned, we were able to conduct some biological observations
of our own on the fauna of the rocky bottom, managing to get some extra
time on many days after the main work was over. Many of the interesting observations
made by us have been serialized and published already and in this last paper
in the series some more observations are recorded and the impressions gained by us
are presented so that it would serve as a guide-line for future workers. Detailed
report of the main work of underwater survey done in collaboration does not fall
within the purview of this paper and should be expected elsewhere at a later date.
 
Publisher MBAI/CMFRI
 
Date 1967
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/926/1/Article_18.pdf
Mahadevan, S and Nayar, K Nagappan (1967) Underwater ecological observations in the Gulf of Mannar off Tuticorin-VII. General topography and ecology of the rocky bottom. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India, 9 (1). pp. 147-165.