Zooplankton abundance in Amini and Kadmat Islands of Lakshadweep

Zooplankters play an important link in the food chain of marine ecosystems. In coral reef ecosystems, they serve as food for corals, a variety of other invertebrates and reef fishes. As the plankters play an important role in the health of an aquatic ecosystem, the study on these resources in the productive aquatic systems of Lakshadweep is important. While searching through the literature, we can see that not much work was carried out on plankters of Lakshadweep ecosystems. Pratap et al. (1977) studied zooplankton at Kavaratti, Agatti and Suhelipar, while, Achuthankutty et al. (1989) dealt with zooplankton composition of Kalpeni and Agatti atolls. Girijavallabhan et al. (1989) studied zooplankters of Kadmat, Kiltan, Chetlat, Agatti, Kalpitti, Bangaram, Bitra, Kavaratti, Suhelipar, Androth, Minicoy and Kalpeni. Goswami and Goswami (1990) gave an account on diel variation in zooplankton of Minicoy lagoon and Kavaratti atoll. In 1997, Suresh and Mathew studied on zooplankton in Kavaratti atoll while Nasser et al. (1998) worked on zooplankton at Minicoy lagoon. Casanova and Nair (1999) gave an account on Sagitta from Agatti lagoon while, Bhalla et al. (2007) made a review on foraminiferal studies in Laccadives Islands. Jose et al. (2010) made a hierarchical analysis of zooplankton assemblages over semidiel pattern in the lagoon of Kavaratti atoll. Recently, Robin et al. (2012) studied planktonic communities and their trophic interactions in Kavaratti waters. Eventhough a very few studies were undertaken on zooplankters of Kadmat, no studies were carried out on zooplankton from Amini so far. Hence, an attempt is made here to study the qualitative and quantitative abundance of zooplankters in Amini and Kadmat lagoons of Lakshadweep and this is the first report on zooplankton from lagoon of Amini Island