Near-shore benthic foraminifera from the Nizampatnam Bay, East coast of India
2014
Rao, N Rajeshwara | Mahapatra, Saubhagya Ranjan | Anbalagan, S. | Pasupathi, R.
Nizampatnam Bay is an embayment adjoining the Krishna Delta in its southern side, covering an area of 1,825 km². A thorough review of literature revealed that very little work has been carried out on benthic foraminifera and their assemblages in this bay. Hence, it was selected for the present study, and eleven bottom water and near-shore sediment samples were collected during February 2013 from the near-shore environment in a water depth range of 0.5 to 3.0 m. Ecological parameters such as water depth, pH, bottom water temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, CaCO₃, organic matter, sand, silt and clay contents were determined adopting standard methodology. Benthic foraminifera were separated from the samples, which yielded 48 species belonging to 23 genera, 18 families, 12 superfamilies, 4 suborders and 5 orders, which have been reported and illustrated. Out of the total population count of 1,431 specimens, 399 were observed to be rose Bengal-stained, and are considered to be living at the time of sample collection. Surprisingly, the most abundant species was observed to be Ammonia dentata (Parker and Jones) in the study area, rather than its more cosmopolitan counterpart, Ammonia beccarii (Linnaeus). The results of this study constitute an accurate and reliable benthic foraminiferal database that would be extremely useful for other researchers. Further, Nizampatnam Bay offers ample opportunities for future research as it forms a part of the prograding Krishna River delta, and benthic foraminiferal assemblages are definitely bound to be influenced by the high volume of fresh water influx into the bay.
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