Biodiversity of Benthic Fauna in Chilika Lagoon

Benthic communities represents the major component of aquatic sedimentary biodiversity and play important roles in major ecosystem processes beside serving as excellent proxy for tracking environmental and anthropogenically induced changes. Chilika lagoon, the largest brackish water lagoon of Asia, is a hot spot for biodiversity and harbors rich aquatic flora and fauna. Numerous studies have been undertaken to date with a focus towards unraveling assemblage structure and diversity of benthic macrofauna and meiofauna from Chilika lagoon. Among benthic macrofauna, Gastropods, Bivalves and Polychaetes are major players in terms of abundance and diversity. In case of meiobenthos, Free-Living Marine Nematodes and Foraminifera constitute major components in terms of abundance and diversity in Chilika lagoon. Lesser known groups of meiobenthos have not been fully explored from this ecosystem. The baseline level information obtained from cataloguing biodiversity of benthic fauna in Chilika lagoon could ultimately form the basis for its long-term ecological monitoring as well as the role of these groups towards sustaining rich fisheries in this unique lagoonal environment.