Fish Species Abundance and Diversity in Chandipur, Bay of Bengal, India

Fish diversity and annual average landings of fishes were studied in Chandipur coast, along east coast of India from July 2010 to March 2011. The data were collected and analyzed by using software SPSS version 16.0 to study the potential fishery status of the coast. Highest landing (64.08611.32 MT) was reported in November 2011 and lowest (28.915.12 MT) in March 2011. The diversity indices showed higher values for Shannon-Weinner (3.26), Margalef species richness (3.53) and Evenness (0.91) and no significant difference was observed in month wise fish landings (F=37.89, P=0.001). The most abundant families were found to be Sciaenids, Clupeids, Polynemids, Stromatids and Arrids which shared about 87 % of total fishery annually. Our result demonstrated that higher diversity values might be due to availability of abundant food resources and suitable environmental conditions at Chandipur, Bay of Bengal which offered high species richness with a potential, economical and valuable fishery resource.