Journal of Aquaculture Research & Development

Abstract

Distribution and Diversity of Macrobenthos in Different Mangrove Ecosystems of Tamil Nadu Coast, India

Thilagavathi B, Varadharajan D, Babu A, Manoharan J, Vijayalakshmi S and Balasubramanian T

This paper deals with the spatial distribution and diversity of macrobenthos and their relationships between physico-chemical parameters of the water and sediment in different mangrove habitats of Tamil Nadu, India during different seasons of the year-2011. Among the different ecosystems of mangrove benthic faunal assemblages, macrofauna density, richness, evenness and Shannon-wiener index were the highest and the Simpson dominance index was medial at riverine mangrove community. However, the Pielou Evenness index of riverine mangrove community was slightly lower than other communities. The similarities among the macrobenthic communities at different sampling sites were determined using Bray-Curtis similarity coefficient and ordinations of non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS). One hundred fifty six species were recorded in developing (102 polychaetes, 10 bivalves, 11 gastropods, 24 amphipods, 6 isopods and 3 cumacea), two hundred fifty two species were recorded in riverine (151 polychaetes, 12 bivalves, 16 gastropods, 53 amphipods, 16 isopods and 4 cumacea) and one hundred sixty three species were recorded in island mangrove ecosystem (105 polychaetes, 10 bivalves, 16 gastropods, 21 amphipods, 9 isopods and 2 cumacea). Among the three ecosystems, a total of 292 benthic macrofauna consisting of 188 species of polychaetes, 12 species of bivalves, 17 species of gastropods, 55 species of amphipods, 16 species of isopods and 4 species of cumacea were recorded. However, there were obvious differences among the community structures in the three mangrove habitats. This result implied that the different mangrove ecosystem had different effects on the macrofauna communities and shed light on the macrofauna adaptation capability to specific habitats.