Diversity and Community Structure of Polychaetes in Mangroves of Indian Coast

This review article provides a comprehensive account of the diversity of polychaetes associated to Indian mangrove ecosystems. Polychaetes constitute an important component in marine benthic communities and play a major ecological role in mangrove ecosystem. Information on polychaete diversity is available only from 12 mangroves out of 19 on the east coast and only from 11 out of 21 those of west coast of India. Altogether 385 species of polychaetes belonging to 176 genera under 49 families, representing 35.22% of the total polychaetes in India, have been listed from mangroves skirting east and west coasts of India. Of this total, as many as 231 species of polychaetes in east coast and 230 species in mangroves of west coast of India were reported to occur. That way, species of the following families such as Nereididae, Spionidae, Terebellidae Sabellidae, Phyllodocidae, Eunicidae, Serpulidae, Lumbrinereidae, Onuphidae, Syllidae, Maldanidae, Capitellidae, and Glyceridae were found to be dominant in the mangrove environment. Among these, Genera Nereis, Glycera, Lumbriconereis, Prionospio were found to be dominant followed by Phyllodoce, Nephtys, Onuphis, Polydora, and Syllis in the next level of abundance. Regrettably, despite its immense role, studies related to polychaete diversity have been made only in 23 mangroves out of 40 mangroves in India. Compared to the studies carried out in other parts of the world, especially Western hemisphere, continuous survey is to be made along the mangroves of both the coasts of India focusing polychaetes, which attach quite a lot of ecological significance and economic importance.