Water quality assessment and occurrence of seagrass associated pen shell Pinna bicolor (Gmelin, 1791) and Pinna deltodes (Menke, 1843) in Pudupattinam Coastal Area, Palk Bay, South East Coast, India.

Abstract

Pen shell species such as Pinna bicolor and Pinna deltodes are found in the muddy region associated with intertidal seagrass in the coastal area of Pudupattinam. The pen shell is one of the sources of animal protein-rich, thereby encouraging the community of pen shells and their study worldwide. The water samples were collected for a year between January to December 2016 and analysed. Salinity (30.1-31.5‰), pH (8.1-8.2), EC value (39.79 103-46.09103 mho), turbidity 25-54 NTU, TSS value (5.51-108mg/l), DO (4.45-5.74ml/l), BOD (0.175 -1.05mg/l), chemical oxygen demand (9.6-39.1mg/l), chloride 14,276.8-16,124.9mg/l), sulphate (1975.3-25mg/l), ammonia (0.022-0.112μm/l), inorganic phosphate (0.754μm/l and maximum 1.568μm/l), total nitrogen (10.829-29.509μm/l), total phosphate (1.76-3.174μm/l) and silicate (42.264-64.121μm/l). Minimum and maximum water temperature ranges (26.9-30.6°C) were recorded. A total of 623 Pinna bicolor and 1341 Pinna deltodes were collected during the same time and consisted of 305 males and 318 females and 558 males and 783 females, respectively. The improvements in the parameters of physico-chemical and statistical analysis have been shown to have a minor effect on the distribution of these two species in the present research, as environmental factors were not sufficient to influence their distribution.