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The present study was undertaken to obtain basic information on the diversity and trophic level of trawl bycatch fishes in Cuddalore and Parangipettai coastal waters, south-east coast of India. A total of 123 species of finfishes, belonging to 13 orders, 49 families and 82 genera were recorded in the trawl bycatch of Cuddalore and Parangipettai from January 2009 to December 2010. Among the orders, Perciformes dominated with 22 families, 40 genera and 66 species (53.6%), followed by Clupeiformes, of which there were four families, nine genera and 18 species (14.6%). Regarding the habitat-wise distribution, 50 species (40.6%) were reef associated, 43 (34.9%) were demersal, 19 (15.4%) were pelagic and 11 (8.9%) were benthopelagic. Considering the trophic levels, 5 (4.0%), 8 (6.5%), 41 (33.3%), 49 (39.8%) and 20 species (16.2%) were recorded in the trophic levels of 2.0–2.49, 2.5–2.99, 3.0–3.49, 3.5–3.99 and 4.0–4.5, respectively, in both the coastal waters.

This research article reports an exhaustive account on the mangrove-associated polychaetes. Polychaetes are an important component in marine benthic communities and they play a major ecological role in mangrove ecosystem. This article gives an overview of polychaete diversity associated to five major mangrove forests of east coast of India (Muthupettai, Pichavaram, Coringa, Bhitarkanika and Sundarban). The results of this survey indicated that the physicochemical parameters did not vary much except a few parameters that showed only marginal variations. With regard to the macrobenthic organisms, the polychaetes topped the list. Crustaceans were found to be the next dominant group in the order of abundance and followed by gastropods and bivalves of the total benthic organisms collected. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that the parameters such as salinity, pH, silt, clay, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphate (TP) were manifested as best match in determining benthic fauna distributions followed by TOC, slit, clay and TP. The maximum number of polychaete species was recorded from Sundarban mangroves (68 species) and minimum in Muthupettai mangroves (39 species).

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