Seasonal variation of the flux of living coccolithophore communities in the Bay of Bengal and their implication on hydrography

Abstract

The Bay of Bengal, the area of investigation is greatly influenced by the Asian monsoons and is highly diversified in its oceanographic setting from northern to southern Bay. For example, the northern Bay is largely impacted by enormous influx of freshwater resulting in sharp horizontal and vertical salinity gradients during the southwest monsoon. The special feature of this study is that it is based on time series sediment trap samples collected over a period of one year, where the temporal and spatial distributions of total coccolithophore fluxes, their diversity and the abundance of various taxa are thoroughly discussed in relation to the various physical processes influenced by reversing monsoons.