Heavy metals in wetlands of southwestern India: from sediments through invertebrates to migratory shorebirds.

Heavy metal pollution in Indian wetlands is rising due to industrial, agricultural and urban development activities. Shorebirds occupy upper trophic levels and are therefore especially vulnerable to heavy metal pollution. We evaluated the concentration of heavy metals (zinc, copper, cobalt, chromium, lead and cadmium) in 22 common species of migrant shorebirds (220 shorebird dropping samples) with diverse foraging behaviors, in their different prey (55 prey samples) and in the sediments (90 sediment samples) in different habitat types (mudflats, mangroves and sand beaches) between 2019 and 2021.

Variability of particulate organic carbon and assessment of satellite retrieval algorithms over the eastern Arabian Sea.

Particulate organic carbon (POC) and its variability were studied to assess the accuracy of ocean colour retrieval algorithms over the eastern Arabian Sea (EAS) as it controls the carbon sequestration, oxygen minimum zone and biogeochemical (C, N and P) cycles. The seasonality in the physical and biological processes strongly influenced the distribution of POC along the EAS. Higher POC and chlorophyll a (chl a) during the spring inter monsoon (SIM) in the north EAS were due to detrainment bloom.