TITLE:
Distribution of Gastropods in the Intertidal Environment of South, Middle and North Andaman Islands, India
AUTHORS:
Chinnusamy Jeeva, P. M. Mohan, K. K. Dil Baseer Sabith, Vibha V. Ubare, Mariyappan Muruganantham, Radha Karuna Kumari
KEYWORDS:
Gastropoda, Abundance, Species Composition, Andaman Sea, Bay of Bengal
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Marine Science,
Vol.8 No.1,
January
31,
2018
ABSTRACT: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the gastropod diversity is high, due to the
majority of shores are rocky. The wet rocky shore promotes algal growth,
which is ultimate for feeding ground for gastropod growth and development
leading to more diversity. The global warming, anthropogenic activities, industrial
and domestic pollution, etc., have accelerated the loss of coastal and
marine biodiversity components over the last few decades which has been of
great concern. However, except global warming, the other factors were of least
concern with reference to Andaman and Nicobar Islands biodiversity due to a
pristine environment. Therefore, exploration of biodiversity in these islands is
essential to create a baseline data for record and future research. Four locations
of south to north Andaman Islands which represented Carbyns Cove
from south Andaman, Rangat and Mayabunder from the Middle Andaman
and Diglipur from the North Andaman were selected for this study. Gastropoda
species were collected for a period of one year in three prevailing seasons
of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. They are South West Monsoon (SW monsoon),
North East Monsoon (NE Monsoon) and Non Rainy Seasons (NR Seasons).
The present study of gastropods distribution in the South, Middle and
North Andaman groups of Islands suggested that there are 71 species belonging
to 52 genus and 33 families. At any one of the time and any one of the locations,
only one occurrence was noticed for 38 species and remaining 33 species
were overlapping with respect to stations and seasons. Evaluation of the
cluster suggested that Cluster A (NR season in Carbyns Cove) and Cluster B
(NE and SW Monsoon in Mayabunder) as a separate entity among the 12
combinations of stations and seasons due to their species representation. It was also concluded that out of 71 studied species, 3 species were not reported
till date in these Island environment and 2 species from any other parts of India.