Distribution of Gastropods in the Intertidal Environment of South, Middle and North Andaman Islands, India

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.