Additional record of scleractinian corals on Porbandar coast, Gujarat, India

Dishant Parasharya,Geeta Padate

doi:10.11609/jott.o3317.5900-4

Abstract

Out of four major coral reefs of India, Gujarat harbours one in the Gulf of Kachchh (GoK). The total scleractinian (hard coral) diversity in the GoK is 59, well documented by various scientists. However, the other coastal area of Gujarat especially the Saurashtra coast, facing the Arabian Sea has been poorly documented with reference to scleractinian diversity. The paper describes the diversity of scleractinian corals on the Porbandar coast facing the Arabian Sea. An occurrence of a total of eight species of scleractinian corals have been reported for the first time from the area Kuchdi in Porbandar District of Gujarat state in Western India.

Highlights

The history of coral reef research in this area is as old as a century, where Hornell (1909) described ƚŚĞ ĐŽƌĂů ƌĞĞĨƐ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞ ĐŚĂŶŬ ĮƐŚĞƌLJ ŽĨ KŬŚĂŵĂŶĚĂů known as Poshitra Bay
This paper describes ƚŚĞ ŽĐĐƵƌƌĞŶĐĞ ŽĨ ƐĐůĞƌĂĐƟŶŝĂŶ ƐƉĞĐŝĞƐ Ăƚ
These colonies are comparatively smaller in size indicating that they have probably evolved recently, compared to the coral colonies of the Gulf of Kachchh, where the size class reaches upto 1m in species such as Porites lutea and Turbinaria peltata (Dishant Parasharya 2004–2010 pers. obs.)

Summary

Materials and Methods

The study was carried out on 31 March 2010 and 1 April 2010. The low tide level during the study was 0.04m. Eight transects of 1x20 m were laid parallel to the low tide line using standard measuring tape. Species similarity Index between the current study area, i.e., Kuchdi and the nearest coral location i.e., Dwarka was calculated using the following formula. All the coral colonies observed were present between 0–40 m from the low water line. A total of eight species of hard corals belonging to five families was recorded of which seven occurred in the sampled area (Table 1) while one was outside the sampled area. All the coral colonies recorded at the location measured less than 15cm in radial growth and showed a similar pattern in occurrence, i.e., in the shallow water tidal pools having a water depth of 10cm or more during the lowest low tide.

Siderastreidae Pseudosiderastrea tayami*

Findings

Conclusions