Program

Mangroves are one of the most productive ecosystems in terms of ecological and economic resources of the coastal environment. The salient features of mangrove ecosystem include interconnected network of numerous creeks, rivers and rivulets and semi-diurnal tides which influence in all physical, chemical and biological properties. They also protect coasts from erosion and provide food and shelter for larger organisms, which also help in nutrient recycling and detritus/organic matter production thereby enriching the benthic production of the ecosystem. Free-living nematodes are one of the benthic domains, owing their ubiquitous nature, highly abundant and diverse, in addition they contributing major part of benthic production through biomass. The present study focused to understand the homogeneity and heterogeneity patterns of free-living nematode diversity along with biogeochemical processes. Therefore, samples were collected at four different geographically distant mangrove ecosystems (Latitudes 10°, 11°, 16° and 21°N) of Bay of Bengal, India during the month of October 2015. The distant geographical locations provide the great variety of hydrological and biogeochemical conditions generates large variability in physico-chemical variables including both freshwater and coastal water influences, topographic heterogeneity, and their interactions, which is directly influencing the nematode diversity patterns in both structural and functional aspects. Ecologically, geologically, chemically and hydro-dynamically each mangrove ecosystem are more complex than originally thought. As a result, geographically distant different mangrove ecosystems harbour specific nematode diversity patterns. Statistical analysis on the nematode community data revealed differences between geographically distant mangrove ecosystems that were greater than differences between sampling stations. This suggests that biogeochemical gradients along with increased food availability and substrate complexity facilitate the co-existence of nematode species heterogeneity with different functionality. Furthermore, strong biogeochemical gradients are responsible for determining the homogeneity and heterogeneity of nematode community structure, which explains 53% of all mangrove nematode species are restricted to a single ecosystem, whereas only 9% are cosmopolitan inhabiting geographically distant mangrove ecosystems. In addition, trophic guild analysis of nematode community indicated that heterogeneity patterns, which shows a verity of food resources availability across the ecosystems. This study demonstrates a preliminary conceptual scheme for interactions between mangrove ecosystems and the sedimentary domain nematode community. This study also suggesting that, many habitats and substrate complexity within the geographical location remain highly underestimated, which affects our ability to understand the contribution of nematode community homogeneity and heterogeneity within and distant mangrove ecosystems.