A REVIEW ON BENTHIC STUDY ALONG ODISHA COAST, EAST COAST OF INDIA: A NEGLECTED RESEARCH

The purpose of quantifying macrobenthos in the sea follows the rationales that the early workers were searching for exploitable fisheries or the importance of benthos for nourishing demersal fish stock. However in more recent years, studying on macrobenthic communities living in the coastal regions proved useful to follow changes in the biological diversity, ecosystem processes, evaluating marine pollution, accessing the demersal fishery resources as well as the environmental monitoring program. Benthic research has long been carried out both in spatial and temporal scale on the distribution, species diversity, community structure and abundance. In India, plenty of works has been reported especially both in East Coast and West Coast including Islands. Benthic studies in the coastal region of India are very few and at the primary stage as compared to other countries of the world. Likewise, the benthic studies of Bay of Bengal along the east coast of India are few as compared with the Arabian Sea along the west coast of India. While we consider about Odisha coast, it is negligible. India has nine maritime states which have been contributed their marine benthic research continuously except Odisha. Very few works have been reported along this coast during last few decades. So realizing the importance of benthic study, the present work is aimed to review how much work has actually made along Odisha Coast, East Coast of India during last few decades (1990-2015).