Fouling communities on ship wreck site in the Gulf of Mannar, India.

ABSTRACT

The Gulf of Mannar is one of the world’s richest marine biospheres and occupies an area of 10,500 sq.km. Twenty one coral reef islands and small patchy reefs are present between Lat. 800 47’N and Long. 780 12’ E to Lat. 900 15’ N and Long. 790 14’ E. from Pamban to Thoothukudi as an arc. These islands possess a very interesting heterogeneous group of fauna and flora. The study was conducted on a twenty year old ship wreck in the Gulf of Mannar, India. During low tides, remnants of the ship are exposed to about 1.5 meters above the water surface. The entire ship wreck is regarded as an artificial reef that harbors corals, fishes and other fauna. Artificial reefs are beneficial in reef conservation and rehabilitation efforts. Successions of artificial reef communities were preliminarily studied using the Line and Belt transect method to assess the composition of benthic organisms like soft corals (25.6 %) and live corals (23.1 %). The abundance of several common reef fishes is also reported.