Macrobenthos of the shelf off North Eastern Bay of Bengal

115-121An extensive survey (76,363 km2) of shelf benthos along the north east coast of India revealed that the macrobenthic production is rich and is comparable with that of the west coast. The biomass and population count varied from nil to 150.6 (x = 10.61 ± 3.2 gm-2) and from nil to 12.572 (x = 839 ± 120 m-2) respectively. Loose sand sheltered rich fauna whereas muddy substrata has very poor fauna. Twenty nine major taxa were identified. Polychaeta formed the dominant group followed by Bivalvia and Amphipoda. These 3 groups together formed 87.55% of the total faunal distribution. Most of the benthic fauna showed contagious distribution with high percentage of faunal similarity. The number of faunal taxa decreased with increasing depth. It is postulated on the basis of macrobenthic production that the demersal fish catch could be doubled against the present exploitation without causing any over-exploitation