Efficiency of sampling gears (Quadrate and Core) and Taxonomic Resolution on the Soft Bottom Intertidal Macrobenthic community of Port Blair coast

Abstract

Ecological studies of a region cannot proceed forward without the evaluation of species diversity. With the ever-increasing demand for studies to understand the change in the macrobenthic communities, the focus has primarily been shifted towards faster results to track down the changes from the prior environments. Therefore, studying the complete benthos faunal diversity of an area leads to an unrealistic approach. Thus, researchers tend to depend on various sampling gears, which ease the work capacity. The present study compared two samplings gears (core and quadrate) in two different habitats to understand the diversity of the macrobenthic communities. In terms of abundance, the core gear showed higher significant differences as compared to quadrate. However, the gears did not significantly differ among the diversity indices (Margalef's index and Shannon- Winer index) and the cluster analysis (Bray-Curtis similarity index and nMDS). The present study found that the 'information loss' was minimal with the aggregated data at a higher taxonomic level. Spearman rank correlation coefficient revealed that the information loss was low up to family-level and the correlation coefficient decreases as the taxonomic level increases after family-level. Nonetheless, the choice of sampling gears did not influence the diversity of the soft-bottom intertidal macrobenthic communities.