Sea urchin diversity and its resources from the Gulf of Mannar

Gulf of Mannar is the richest marine biodiversity hotspot along the Southeast coast of India, encompassing the territorial waters from Dhanushkodi in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. It has a chain of 21 islands, located 2 to 10 km from the mainland along the 140 km stretch between Thoothukudi and Rameswaram. The area of Gulf of Mannar under the Indian EEZ is about 15,000 km2 where commercial fishing takes place only in about 5,500 km2 and that too only up to a depth of 50m. This marine ecosystem holds nearly 117 species of corals, 441 species of fin-fishes, 12 species of sea grasses, 147 species of seaweeds, 641 species of crustaceans, 731 molluscan species (Kumaraguru, 2006). There are around 950 species of sea urchin in class Echinoidea which comes under two subclasses found around the world’s oceans

Weed anemone menace in marine aquaria and its management

Sea anemones are coming under the Phylum Cnidaria and Class Anthozoa. Like many Cnidarians, sea anemones contain specialized cells, known as cnidocytes or nematocytes, in their body column, oral disc, pharynx, tentacles and mesenterial filaments. Sea anemones of Aiptasia genus are distributed in temperate and tropical oceans attached to any hard substratum. The genus Aiptasia includes 13 species all equipped with 96 tentacles which are filled with nematocysts to sting their prey. The name Aiptasia itself means ‘beautiful’, however in marine aquarium keeping even if few Aiptasia are found in the tank it should not be taken so lightly. A hardy species it can explode in numbers within weeks. Aiptasia is a zooxanthellate anemone and survives well in the illuminated marine aquarium due to the photosynthetic activity of its algal symbiont

Cloud Computing Adoption: A Mapping Of Service Delivery And Deployment Models

The recent upward trend in adopting cloud computing by businesses worldwide reflects the captivating opportunity of cost effective computing brought by cloud computing to replace the traditional IT computing services model. However, the decision to adopt cloud computing is somewhat complex. This paper will review the literature of cloud computing service and deployment models with the aim to determine the relevant characteristics of both service delivery and deployment models. Then, the authors will develop a mapping between the two sets of characteristics of cloud computing models. The mapping will lead to the development of a decision-making framework for managing cloud-computing adoption

Semiya Paasi is not seaweed but a bryozoan

Bryozoans found in marine environments are commonly called sea mats, moss animals or lace corals and are found from the intertidal zone to some of the deepest parts of the ocean. There are about 6,500 recognized living species worldwide and about 257 species have been documented from India forming 4 percent of the total global bryozoans’ diversity

First report of occurrence of fouling diatom Licmophora flabellata from the Gulf of Mannar

Fouling diatoms are important biofoulers on the structure made for fish culture and other aquatic activities. Licmophora species are a common constituent of marine, littoral, micro-epiphytic communities and generally found colonizing filamentous red, brown and green macroalgae, submerged in rock pools throughout the littoral zone

Comparative Evaluation of Parallelization Strategies for Evolutionary and Stochastic Heuristics

In this paper we present an evaluation of selected parallel strategies for Simulated Annealing and Simulated Evolution, identifying the impact of various issues on the effectiveness of parallelization. Issues under consideration are the characteristics of these algorithms, the problem instance, and the implementation environment. Observations are presented regarding the impact of parallel strategies on runtime and achievable solution quality. Effective parallel algorithm design choices are identified, along with pitfalls to avoid. We further attempt to generalize our assessments to other heuristics

Occurrences of immortal jellyfish Turritopsis cf. dohrnii from the Mandapam coastal waters of the Gulf of Mannar

During the routine jelly plankton survey along the Mandapam coastal waters, a swarm of hydrozoans was collected in February 2022. These were identified as the immortal jellyfish Turritopsis cf. dohrnii. The hydrozoan jellyfish swarm is the medusa stage of the organism, whereas the larval phase is sedentary and attached to some hard substratum at the bottom. Once a larva metamorphoses into a polyp, it buds off as a jellyfish, causing a bloom

Comparative Evaluation of Parallelization Strategies for Evolutionary and Stochastic Heuristics

In this paper we present an evaluation of selected parallel strategies for Simulated Annealing and Simulated Evolution, identifying the impact of various issues on the effectiveness of parallelization. Issues under consideration are the characteristics of these algorithms, the problem instance, and the implementation environment. Observations are presented regarding the impact of parallel strategies on runtime and achievable solution quality. Effective parallel algorithm design choices are identified, along with pitfalls to avoid. We further attempt to generalize our assessments to other heuristics

First report of cepheid scyphozoan jellyfish Marivagia stellata Galil & Gershwin, 2010 from Palk Bay, southeast coast of India

During a regular survey along the Palk Bay on 25th July 2018, 16 specimens of Marivagia stellata were collected from shore-seine operations at Dhargavalasai in Ramanathapuram District of Tamil Nadu, southeast coast of India. The presence of M. stellata has been reported along the west coast earlier, however, this is the first time the occurrence of this species is reported along the Palk Bay coast of India. M. stellata is relatively a smaller jellyfish species and has been described only in 2010 from the Mediterranean coast of Israel. This species’ sting is not harmful to human

Traditional Knowledge on the Edibility of Sea urchin roe among the Fisher folk Community of the Gulf of Mannar region with a note on their Cuisine

Sea urchins are marine echinoderms and their body consists of five gonads covered by a calcareous test. The gonads of male and female sea urchins are commonly called ‘roe’ and have been known a delicacy in several parts of the world. However in India not all the coastal community eat the gonads of sea urchin, but fishers of a fishing village along Gulf of Mannar, have the habit of consuming the sea urchin roe for centuries. There are a variety of sea urchin recipes viz., Risotto with Sea Urchin-Dill, and Smoked Caviar-Sea Urchin Mousse with Ginger Vinaigrette, Sea Urchin Bruschetta and Sea Urchin Linguine available in the western world, but in India the cuisine of sea urchin roe is not well known, the present study documented for the first time on the two cooking methods viz., Grilling and dry fry of sea urchin roe from the fisherfolk community of Gulf of Mannar region