Spatial variation of aerobic culturable heterotrophic bacterial population in sediments of the continental slope of western Bay of Bengal

51-58Culturable total heterotrophic bacterial populations from the sediments of the continental slope in the depth zone of 214-1000 m in western side of Bay of Bengal were enumerated. The physico-chemical parameters of overlying water and sediment were also recorded and correlated with the bacterial population. The sediment bacterial population ranged from 0.42 to 37.38 x 10⁴ CFU g⁻¹ (dry wt). The top section of the sediment (0-3 cm) had higher bacterial abundance in the range of 1.01-37.98 x 10⁴ CFU g⁻¹(dry wt) and the vertical bacterial population decreased through the middle (3-6 cm; 0.15-37.21 x 10⁴ CFU g⁻¹ (dry wt) to the bottom section (6-9 cm; 0.10-36.92 x 10⁴ CFU g⁻¹ (dry wt). The total heterotrophic bacterial population correlated significantly with sediment water (P<0.02), total organic carbon (P<0.02) and clay fraction (P