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Intra-monsoonal variation of zooplankton population in the Sundarbans Estuarine System, India

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Abstract

The present study was conducted during July 2013 (early phase of monsoon or EM) and September 2013 (later phase of monsoon or LM) to ascertain the intra-monsoonal variation on zooplankton, by selecting 15 study stations in the river Saptamukhi, one of the main estuaries in the Sundarbans Estuarine System (SES). In 2013, SES experienced an unusually high monsoonal rainfall also exacerbated by cloud burst event at Himalayan region (upper stretches of SES) which tremendously increased the river runoff. The present work was aimed to decipher the effect of this unusual precipitation during the monsoon season on zooplankton assemblages along with different hydrological parameters. The abundance of zooplankton was recorded as lower during EM compared to LM. Altogether, 56 zooplankton taxa were identified with copepods forming the predominant population. Thirty-three copepod species were reported with 25 calanoid species forming the bulk of the biomass followed by 5 and 3 species of cyclopoids and harpacticoid, respectively. A combination of multivariate cluster analysis, biotic indices, and canonical correspondence analysis revealed noticeable alterations in the zooplankton community structure across the spatio-temporal scale. Furthermore, significant intra-monsoonal changes in zooplankton population correlated with several hydrological parameters were clearly noticed. Paracalanus parvus, Bestiolina similis and Oithona similis were observed to be the most dominant copepod species in both sampling periods. The result of the present study provides new insight on estuarine zooplankton community after unusual rainfall during monsoon season, and provides further evidence to support the conservation and management of the SES ecosystem.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to The Vice Chancellor, Presidency University for her support and encouragement. Thanks are also due to Mr. Michael Holesworth for his comments to improve the manuscript. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Forests and the Sundarbans Development Board, Government of West Bengal for the permission to work in some of the Reserve Forest areas. The authors thank anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Thanks are also due to all the members of SEP-2013 and Marine Ecology Laboratory for their overwhelming help and co-operation during the study.

Funding

The work was done as part of the Sundarbans Estuarine Program 2013, funded by INCOIS-MoES, Government of India to M.C. (Sanction No. F/INCOIS/HOOFS-05-2013 dated 21.06.2013) and MoES (MoES/36/OOIS/Extra/24/2013) and FRPDF grant of Presidency University to S.M.

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  1. Marine Ecology Laboratory, Department of Life Sciences, Presidency University, 86/1, College Street, Kolkata, 700073, India

    Tanmoy Nandy & Sumit Mandal

  2. Basanti Devi College, Kolkata, 700029, India

    Meenakshi Chatterjee

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Nandy, T., Mandal, S. & Chatterjee, M. Intra-monsoonal variation of zooplankton population in the Sundarbans Estuarine System, India. Environ Monit Assess 190, 603 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-6969-8

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