Diversity of Oceanic Zooplankton in Andaman Sea

Andaman Sea is partially isolated portion of the northeastern Indian Ocean which lies enclosed between the coast of Burma, Thailand and Malaysia on the east and the chain of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Sumatra Islands of Indonesia on the west. The biomass, density, diversity and distribution of oceanic zooplankton were studied from 10 stations along the continental slope of Andaman Sea during September 10-20, 2008 by onboard research vessel ORV Sagar Manjusha. A total of 96 species of zooplankton belonging to 19 groups and 74 genera were recorded during the study. Copepods were the dominant group at all the stations and their composition of occurrence ranged from 30.39% at station 4 to 44.30% at station 7. The volume of zooplankton ranged between 4.7mL/100m³ and 12.7mL/100m³ at stations 6 and 3 respectively. However, the numerical density of zooplankton along the study area showed minimum as 17300 No./100m³ and maximum as 31620 No./100m³ at these stations. The data pertaining to physicochemical parameters of seawater were also collected and the results discussed.