Polychaete community structure of Indian west coast shelf, Arabian Sea

Abstract

Macrobenthic polychaete communities of the western continental shelf of India (Arabian Sea) were investigated between 1998 and 2001 using different taxonomic levels to test whether lower resolution data set can explain community variation along the depth gradient similar to the higher resolution data set. Our previous study with species level data has shown that depth gradients influence the distribution and abundance of polychaetes. Similar relationship with data aggregated to genus and family level is found in this study. All the depth ranges showed a closely parallel course for taxa richness and diversity for the three levels of resolution. Our high resolution data showed significant community differences (ANOSIM) between the depth ranges 30-50 and >150 m and 51-100 and >150 m whereas the low resolution data (family) further separated the communities between 101-150 and >150 m depth ranges