Coral bleaching in Andaman Sea - an indicator for climate change in Andaman and Nicobar Islands

摘要

Andaman Sea is one of the highly productive seas in the world. The western boundary of the Andaman Sea is bordering Andaman and Nicobar Islands which harbours more than 400 species of scleractinian coral with the formation of fringing reef along the continental shelf. Sclearctinians corals and zooxanthallae (micro algae) are setting up a mutual symbiotic relationship for the survival of each other. A fundamental niche is very much required to maintain the above said relationship. Temperature is one of the curators to make the niche sense. Abrupt rise in Surface Sea Temperature (28 degrees C to 31.7 degrees C) was recorded in April to July 2010 which leads to massive coral bleaching i.e. displacement zooxanthallae from residing scleractinian to the mark of 80 +/- 10.5%. On resumption of normal environmental features in due course, recuperation of bleached corals or re-association of zooxanthallae with scleractinian corals was measured up to a maximum of 81.84 +/- 3.7% over the period of year. Besides new recruitment of corals (23.15 +/- 6.9%) was also noticed in reef areas of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Coral bleaching is yet another clarion call for Andaman Sea on climate change which needs to be mitigated through effective managerial strategies at regional as well as global scale.