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Influence of upwelling on the chaetognath community along the Southeastern Arabian Sea

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Abstract

Community structure and distribution of chaetognaths were investigated along the upwelled and non-upwelled waters of Southeastern Arabian Sea (SEAS) from the coastal, shelf and open ocean regions. With the onset of monsoon, intense upwelling along the southern part of SEAS (8° 28′ N) and a weak coastal upwelling along the northern counterpart (15° 30′ N) was evident. Zooplankton biomass was observed to be high in the upwelled waters with the dominance of copepods. Chaetognaths were also observed in significant numbers all along the SEAS, however maximum numerical abundance was observed in the southern upwelled waters. Chaetognaths belonging to 10 genera were identified of which genus Flaccisagitta (54%) made the most dominant group along the entire study area followed, in order of abundance, by Serratosagitta (20%), Mesosagitta (18.2%), Sagitta (12.3%), Ferosagitta (11%) and Krohnitta (6.4%). Flaccisagitta were observed to be abundant in the upwelled waters along with Pterosagitta, Serratosagitta, Sagitta, Krohnitta and Ferosagitta whereas genus Mesosagitta dominated the non-upwelled waters of northern transects.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology, Ministry of Earth Science, for providing the facilities to conduct the research. We also thank crew members of FORV Sagar Sampada for the help rendered during the cruise period.

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  1. Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology & Biochemistry, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kochi, Kerala, 682016, India

    Aishwarya Purushothaman, Lathika Cicily Thomas, S. Bijoy Nandan & K. B. Padmakumar

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  1. Aishwarya Purushothaman
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  2. Lathika Cicily Thomas
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  3. S. Bijoy Nandan
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  4. K. B. Padmakumar
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AP wrote the manuscript with input from LCT. AP conducted the field study. AP and LCT contributed to the taxonomic identifications. SBN and KBP supervised this study and provided research materials. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to K. B. Padmakumar.

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Purushothaman, A., Thomas, L.C., Nandan, S.B. et al. Influence of upwelling on the chaetognath community along the Southeastern Arabian Sea. Wetlands Ecol Manage 29, 731–743 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-020-09773-6

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