Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Biotic assemblage on coastal defense structures: a contributor to biodiversity

Volume 57 Issue 1

J. Prince Prakash Jebakumar*, G. Nandhagopal, S. Ragumaran and B. Rajan Babu

10.6024/jmbai.2015.57.1.1834-05

Abstract

This study explores the nature of faunal assemblage on coastal erosion protection structures. The biotic community structural studies of macro faunal assemblage on geotube deployed at kovalam coast reveals around 13 species of epibiota dominated by brown mussel recruitment. The traditional coastal defense structures like rock, boulders, tetrapod and caissons located along Chennai coast recorded 12 species broadly categorized as macro-algae, bivalves and gastropods. The diversity pattern of epibiota population density has been studied using β diversity.
The gastropod and bivalve population recorded high β diversity indicating the low similarity among the species with high population diversity along the various coastal defense structures studied. Whereas, the macro algae recorded low β diversity indicating the high similarity of species in the population withlow diversity. Thus, epibiota population recruitment on coastal defense structures ultimately contributes to coastal biodiversity,
the magnitude of contribution being in the order of Gastropod > Bivalve > Macro algae.

Keywords

Epibiota, assemblage, geo textiles, diversity index.

Date : 30-06-2015