Environmental studies for the assessment of myctophid resources in the Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea is a very special region of the world ocean as it is situated in the tropical belt, land-locked in the north and forced by seasonally reversing monsoon winds. In addition it is one of the highest biologically productive regions of the world ocean and also houses a permanent oxygen minimum zone. Though we have gained sufficient knowledge about the vertical distribution and horizontal variability of the zooplankton in the Arabian Sea and its coupling to the phytoplankton biomass based on the previous programmes in the Arabian Sea such as GLOBEC and JGOFS, our understanding about the Myctophid in the mesopelagic layer is far from complete. We do not yet understand how Mytophid biomass is sustained on an annual basis. It is in this context that the present proposal is conceived