Comparative studies on the ecology of bottom macrofauna in seasonal and perennial fish ponds and in the adjacent backwaters.

Abstract

The flora and fauna inhabit at or near the bottom or sub-bottom layer of aquatic ecosystem may be broadly considered as benthos. The studies on benthic communities their distribution and abundance in space and time form an exciting field of brackishwater studies. The faunestic composition of tropical estuaries is represented by a wide spectrum of animals belonging to groups such as Polychaetes, Crustaceans, Molluscs, Nematodes, fishes etc. Benthos, for many years, has been a stepchild of ecology depending upon the thoughts generated by terrestial and water column colleagues. But with the increasing awareness on the complex relationship of benthic communities and the surrounding environment, in which they live, benthic ecologists have broken these feters and produced original research and hypothesis, now available to whole ecological world. As the tropical estuary is a special ecological niche with a complex dynamic mixture of transitional conditions, the faunestic composition and their abundance too showed very Interesting community structures and vary often with wide seasonal fluctuations