Abstract
The study presents evidence that the ichthyoplankton community of Indian Sundarbans is experiencing the effects of climate-change-induced salinity rise over the last decade (2010–2019). Observations of ichthyoplankton diversity using Shannon-Weiner species diversity index exhibit significant spatial variation between the western and central Indian Sundarbans, which are significantly different in terms of salinity. The Hooghly estuary in the western Indian Sundarbans is hyposaline (average salinity = 10.50 psu) due to input of freshwater from the Farakka barrage, while the Matla estuary in the central Indian Sundarbans is hypersaline (average salinity = 22.85 psu) due to complete blockage of freshwater as a result of massive siltation in the Bidyadhari River. This variation in salinity probably caused a compositional variation in the ichthyoplankton community. A relatively high value of Shannon-Weiner index was observed for commercially important ichthyoplankton species (like Pama pama, Polynemus paradiseus, Arius jella, Tenualosa ilisha, Sillaginopsis panijus, Osteogeneiosus militaris, Polydactylus indicus, etc.) in the Hooghly estuary compared to the Matla estuary, while a reverse order was noticed with higher diversity of trash variety of ichthyoplankton (like Thryssa sp., Stolephorus sp., Harpadon nehereus, Cynoglossus sp., etc.) in the Matla estuary. The average value of Shannon-Weiner index for commercially important ichthyoplankton in the Hooghly estuary is 2.266, whereas in the Matla estuary it is 1.853. On the contrary, for trash variety, the index value is 1.753 in the Hooghly estuary and 2.302 in the Matla estuary. The overall result suggests that climate-change-induced sea level rise and subsequent rise of salinity in the Matla estuary posed an adverse impact on the commercially important ichthyoplankton. The ecological impact of such significant spatial variation of ichthyoplankton community warrants future study.
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Mukherjee, P., Mitra, A., Zaman, S., Mitra, A. (2021). Impact of Climate-Change-Induced Salinity Alteration on Ichthyoplankton Diversity of Indian Sundarbans. In: Luetz, J.M., Ayal, D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57281-5_276
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