Home Marine Biodiversity and Environment Management Division

Thrust Areas of Research:

Environment and Fisheries, PFZ validation, Eco-biological modelling
Evaluation of ecosystem services and processes, marine litter and other anthropogenic impacts
Development of restoration protocols for mangroves, awareness campaigns
Focus on seaweeds, seagrass habitats, plankton, marine mammals, coastal and pelagic birds
Climate change –focus on carbon sequestration, Ocean acidification, society based programs Development of Indian finfish and shellfish biodiversity knowledge base to foster the assessment of biological diversity of Indian seas.
Biodiversity valuation of marine organisms in selected marine ecosystems along the Indian coast.
Assessment of fishing impacts on biodiversity loss with reference to threatened species and fisheries management.
Monitoring the conservation biology of economically important and threat-prone species and fragile ecosystem.

Development and Maintenance of database of Maine Biodiversity Museum to dissiminate the information on the web to make it easily accessible to all

Ongoing Research Projects:

Completed Research Projects:

a. In-house Projects :

b. Sponsored Projects :

c. Consultancy Projects :

Significant Achievements in the last 5 years

Technologies/Concepts/Findings

Fisheries and Environment

• Correlations between environmental parameters and catches of oil sardine: Positive anomalies of CUS (indicating intense upwelling) were found to result in poor landing of oil sardine during 1926 - 1956 and during 1993-1998
• Negative anomalies of CUS (indicating mild upwelling) were found to result in good landing of oil sardine during 1957-1992 and during 1999-2005.
• mKrishi service developed for providing PFZ advisory for fishermen in mobile phones in local language
• The analyses of PFZ advisories clearly indicates that the near shore regions of the Arabian Sea off Kerala with depths less than 50 m occurred more in the PFZ advisory maps than the mid continental shelf region and the continental slope.
• Initiated detailed studies on Mudbanks of Kerala in collaboration with NIO. Significant observations were made on resources, pelagic birds, reptiles and plankton through targeted cruises.
• A database was developed on Sr/Ca ratio of otolith of oil sardine and mackerel from Indian Coast for the first time in the country. Sr/Ca ratio showed significant spatial variability in the case of oil sardine and temporal variability in mackerel.

ANTROPOGENIC IMPACTS

• Continuous observation indicated that common commercial pelagic, demersal, mollusks and crustacean resources were free from mercury contamination
• Developed time series database on heavy metals in seafood from three centres each along west and east coast of India
• Developed data base on heavy metals (Hg, As, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Ni and Mn) in sediment at selected locations of west and east coast of India
• Developed data base on heavy metals (Hg, As) in water at selected locations of west and east coast of India
• Marine debris / litter from different maritime states were categorized as per UNEP criteria.
• A methodology for grading the coastal ecosystem based on the spread of litter in water, in three tier (floating, column, submerged) was developed
• Based on the USEPA (2004) guidelines, the sea water quality index (SWQI) was worked out for selected coastal areas of different maritime states
• Micro plastics of size less than 5mm and 5 to 10 mm were recorded in the gut of pelagics.
• Ghost nets were observed in the coastal and oceanic waters along west coast

HABITATS

• Minicoy atoll had average biomass of 500 g m-2 wet weight of underground parts (rhizomes and roots) but had only 96 g m-2 of leaves indicating the canopy loss (leaf biomass) owing to herbivory by green turtles
• Protocol for restoration of mangroves especially Rhizophora mucronata was developed, through participatory approach as a community based programme for Central Kerala.
• Underwater explorative survey in the Palk Bay, revealed that three types of sea grass beds (i) Coral reef associated sea grass bed as observed in Mandapam area (ii) Mangrove associated sea grass bed as in in Adirampattinam, Mallipattinam and Sethupavachatramarea and (iii) Shallow sandy bottom sea grass bed as found in Thondi, Kottaipattinam and Jegathapattinam area.

MARINE MAMMALS AND SEA BIRDS

• The stomach contents of seven species of marine mammals consisting of 11 finless porpoise, spinner dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, Indo-pacific humpbacked dolphins, Risso’s dolphin, tropical spotted dolphin and long beaked common dolphin indicated that the cetaceans feed mostly on teleosts with wide range of trophic levels.
• Based on index that included frequency of occurrence, percentage by number and by weight, the oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps)was the most important prey in the marine mammal sample.
• Muscle, liver and kidney samples from 33 incidentally caught and stranded marine mammals at six sampling locations showed that the trace metals’ concentrations in the samples were low compared to those from other parts of world.
• Blubber samples from 37 individuals belonging to eight species of marine mammals were analysed for organochlorine pesticides. The concentrations of ?HCHs (BHCs), ?DDTs and chlordanes were generally lower than the values reported from other parts of the world.
• Dugong scars observed in Palk Bay Sea grass beds during September 2013

CLIMATE CHANGE

• It is estimated that the seaweed biomass along the Indian coast is capable of utilizing 9052 t CO2/d against emission of 365 t CO2 /d indicating a net carbon credit of 8687 t/d.
• Targeted ecological observations and results of lab based experiments indicated that, if pH drops below 7.0 during the meroplanktonic phase of oyster, recruitment will be affected and therefore oyster spat densities can be used as an indicator for acidification in tropical estuaries.
• Vulnerability index of West Bengal districts calculated.
• SST variations and seasonal changes observed in three major lakes viz, Vembanad Lake, Chika Lake and Pulicat Lake
• Fishermen awareness levels on climate change indicate poor knowledge on CC .
• Surveys indicated CC impacts on coastal villages with respect to change in fishing area, sea water level and frequent extreme events.

MARICULTURE

• Technology developed for seed production of sea cucumbers under controlled conditions
• EIA of sea cage farming carried out
• EIA of edible oyster farming carried out and management advisories for reducing the impact on sediment proposed
• Farming methods for commercially important seaweeds developed.
• Techniques for stock culture and mass culture of algal feed in hatcheries standardized.

BIODIVERSITY

• Technologies developed for the propagation of Sinularia kavarattiensis in the laboratory and in open sea
• Technologies developed for the propagation of soft corals – Cladiella laciniosa, Dampia pocilloporaeformis and Lobophytum pauciflorum in the laboratory
• Technologies for the propogation of sponges and hard coral were developed
• Deep-sea sponge species new to science (Semperellame galoxea sp. nov.) reported from Andaman waters : Registered in World Porifera Database (WPD) and World Register of Marine Species (WORMS)
• Four species of corals, Acropora thomasi, A. valamunensis, A. mannarensis and A. josephi new to science described.
• Bleekeria murtii – A fish species new to science described
• A unique bacterial strain C29 isolated from Porites sp. from Vizhinjam was subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing and blast search. This strain was found to be a potential novel genus showing similarity to Fabibacter halotolerans under the family Flexibacteraceae
• Herbarium of 85 species of seaweeds from GOMBR was developed
• New distributional records reported from Indian seas