New additional record, Pavona minuta Wells 1954 to the Scleractinian diversity of Gulf of Kachchh Marine National Park & Sanctuary, India

• Published in: Thalassas : revista de ciencias del mar Vol. 39; no. 2; pp. 1145 - 1154
• Main Authors: Ch, Satyanarayana, R., Chandran, M., Selva Bharath, K., Ramkumaran, V., Thanappan, C., Surendar, R., Senthil Kumaran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.10.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Coastal Sciences; Coral reefs; Corals; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management; Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Genera; Heavy water; Marine & Freshwater Sciences; Marine invertebrates; National parks; Nature conservation; New records; Oceanography; Pavona minuta; Sanctuaries; Species diversity; Tidal amplitude; Water currents; India; Narara island; Corals; Gulf of Kachchh; Scleractinia; Agariciidae
• ISSN: 0212-5919; 2366-1674
• DOI: 10.1007/s41208-023-00594-x

Coral species diversity in Gulf of Kachchh reefs is less diverse when compare with other three major coral reef regions of India. Macro tidal amplitude, heavy water current and murky waters in the Kachchh upkeep many inaccessible, unexplored reef sites along the Kachchh. Exploring such a reef in Narara, present account adds a new generic record, Pavona minuta, which also the first representative of the family Agariciidae to the Kachchh waters. The species diversity recorded so far from the Gulf of Kachchh is ambiguous, as different studies figured out dissimilar number of species and number of studies added new distributional records without carrying out any taxonomical studies of the specimens also. To remove this uncertainty, an updated check-list of corals with current taxonomically valid species, recorded hitherto from the Gulf of Kachchh through taxonomical evidence is also provided. With this, valid coral species of the Kachchh is represented by 52 species, divisible under 29 genera and 13 families.