Biodiversity of coral reef associated fishes along southeast coast of India

Abstract

A random sampling survey of coral reef associated fishes was conducted in Cuddalore (site 1), Parangipettai (site 2) and Nallavadu (site 3) along the southeast coast of India during January 2012 to December 2013. The aim of the present investigation was to reveal the biodiversity of coral reef associated fishes in these areas. Across the three study sites, a total of 162 species of coral reef associated fishes were recorded, belonging to 17 orders, 41 families and 94 genera. Among three regions, the values of Shannon diversity index (5.775), species richness (13.74) and phylogenetic diversity (4217) were found to be maximum in site 1 during premonsoon 2012, and the taxonomic diversity (55.86) was found to be maximum in site 2 during premonsoon 2012. But the evenness index (0.869) was maximum in site 1 during postmonsoon 2013. The Shannon diversity (4.326), evenness index (0.705) and taxonomic diversity (51.50) were found to be minimum in site 3 during summer 2012. But the species richness (8.479) and the phylogenetic diversity (2467) were minimum in site 3 during summer 2013. Hence the present study provided information regarding the biodiversity of coral reef associated fishes and analysis of data undertaken with conventional tools like univariate and multivariate methods clearly revealed the healthy nature of diversity of coral reef associated fishes along these areas.