Comparative study of seaweed diversity indices in two different coastal areas in Veraval and Sikka coast, Gujarat, India

Abstract

This study on seaweed diversity indices in two different coastal areas namely Veraval and Sikka coast was carried out from September 2019 to February 2020. Seaweed diversity at Veraval and Sikka coasts has been studied for six months the using belt transect random sampling method. A total of fifty seaweed species which comprise fourteen orders and nineteen families were recorded where thirty-nine of the species belong to the Veraval and fourty-one species were from Sikka. The best-represented family in both coastal areas of the Veraval and Sikka was Sargassaceae species, respectively. The Shannon-Wiener diversity index and Pielou's evenness index in the Veraval and Sikka coastal areas were counted as 2.83 and 1.80, and 0.62 and 0.40, respectively. For a healthy environment, the range of Shannon –Weiner species diversity index (H) values ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 in most ecological studies. During the diversity survey, economically important species like Ulva lactuca, U. fasciata, Sargassum sp., and Caulerpa sp., were reported.