OCCURRENCE, DIVERSITY AND CATCH RATE OF CLUPEIFORMES FISHES FROM SOUTHERN COAST OF INDIA

The Clupeiformes fishery in India is important resource for livelihood of fisherman, and there is vast scope for food and oil, both at national and international markets. The present study emphasize Clupeiformes fish species diversity and its catch rates was assessed on the basis of fortnightly random sampling during June 2015 to May 2016 from different landing centers viz., Tuticorin (Lat. 8°47′26″N, Long. 78°10′07″E) and Chinnamuttom (Lat. 8°05′52″N, Long. 77°33′50″E), Colachel (Lat. 8°10′17″N, Long. 77°15′11″E) and Vizhinjam (Lat. 8°10′17″N, Long. 77°15′11″E) in Southern coast of India. In total 28 species belonged to 5 families under 17 genera were documented during the study period.

The fishes comes under the families Clupeidae (12 species) dominates followed by Engraulidae (10 species), Pristigasteridae (3 species), Chirocentridae (2 species) and Dusumeridae (1 species) mentioned in Figure.1. The most dominant species encountered are Sardinella gibbosa followed by S. longiceps and Thryssa mystax were represented in more in numbers. Among the landing centre, Tuticorin dominates with (25 species) followed by Chinnamuttom (23 species) and Vizhinjam (21 species). The catch was found to be high in Tuticorin (8250 tonnes) followed by Chinnamuttom (8250 t), Colachel (3400 t) and Vizhinjam (3100 t) mentioned in Table.1.

The numbers of species recorded was higher during the post monsoon followed by summer, pre monsoon and monsoon. The result on the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity details using the PRIMER v6 software was elucidated in the paper.