Anthropogenic risk assessment of riverine habitat using geospatial modelling tools for conservation and restoration planning: a case study from a tropical river Pranhita, India.

The riverine ecosystem provides multiple benefits to human community and contributes to the sustainable development of the ecoregion. The growing dependency on these ecosystems has largely contributed to aggravating the ecological risks, habitat degradation, and loss of ecosystem services. The present study evaluates the ecological risk emanating from nine anthropogenic stressors including river use, hydro-morphology, catchment pollution, and biological stressor on river Pranhita in Godavari Basin of Peninsular India using InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) Habitat Risk Assessment model.

Framework for mapping the drivers of coastal vulnerability and spatial decision making for climate-change adaptation: A case study from Maharashtra, India.

The impacts of climate change are of particular concern to the coastal region of tropical countries like India, which are exposed to cyclones, floods, tsunami, seawater intrusion, etc. Climate-change adaptation presupposes comprehensive assessment of vulnerability status. Studies so far relied either on remote sensing-based spatial mapping of physical vulnerability or on certain socio-economic aspects with limited scope for upscaling or replication.

An updated checklist of Echinoderms from Indian waters.

Species checklists enlist the species available within the defined geographical region and thus serve as essential input for developing conservation and management strategies. The fields of conservation biology and ecology confront the challenge of inflated biodiversity, attributed to non-recognition of taxonomic inconsistencies such as synonyms, alternate representation, emendations etc. Critical review of the checklists and distributional records of Phylum Echinodermata from Indian waters and subsequent validation of species names with World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) database, revealed that the current literature included 236 incorrect entries comprising of 162 synonyms, 15 emendations, 5 nomina dubia, 1 nomen nudum, 40 species under alternate representation, 9 species with author misnomer, 1 subspecies and 1 unaccepted.

Impact of Coastal Pollution on Microbial and Mineral Profile of Edible Oyster (Crassostrea rivularis) in the Coastal Waters of Andaman.

The impact of coastal pollution was studied using edible oysters, Crassostrea rivularis as an indicator at two sites viz., North Wandoor (NW) and Phoenix Jetty (PJ) in Port Blair, Andaman. The hydrographic parameters showed that nitrite, nitrate and phosphate concentration were less and dissolved oxygen were more at NW compared to PJ.

Presence of SXT integrating conjugative element in marine bacteria isolated from the mucus of the coral Fungia echinata from Andaman Sea.

In this study, we characterize 18 cultivable bacteria associated within the mucus of the coral Fungia echinata from Andaman Sea, India. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that all the 18 strains isolated in this study from the coral mucus belong to the group Gammaproteobacteria and majority of them were identified as Vibrio core group. Our objective was to investigate the presence of the SXT/R391 integrating conjugative elements (ICEs) targeting integrase int(SXT) and SXT Hotspot IV genetic elements in these isolates.