Biodiversity of Marine Gastropods Along the Coastal Belt of East Midnapore District of West Bengal, India

Benthos, or the bottom dwellers of any marine ecosystem, performs the key role in maintaining the marine food chain and nutrient cycles. Macro-benthos are very important as they connect the benthic biotopes and the water column in the aquatic bodies. They also participate in breaking the complex organic matter, releasing the trapped energy and finally transferring the released energy to the higher trophic levels. Marine molluscs identified in India belong to 220 families and 591 genera, among them 1900 are gastropods. Humans use marine gastropods in many ways, ranging from human consumption to medicinal uses, ornament preparation, and other miscellaneous uses. They are a very good source of bioactive compounds with antitumor, anti-leukemic, antibacterial and antiviral properties and therefore, used in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, depression and epilepsy, asthma, rickets, certain skin diseases, strokes and heart disease. As these species have such diverse uses, they are also exploited on a large scale and therefore need to be protected. The present study explores the species composition of Indian marine gastropods from four different study areas namely Soula, Shankarpur, Tajpur and Udaypur located along the coastal belt of East Midnapore districts of West Bengal, India to understand the impact of anthropogenic effects on the composition of marine gastropod species with respect to the changes in the occurrence of tides and seasons.