Assessment of Effluent Stressed Ecosystem of Cuddalore Coastal Waters – a Bio-Indicator Approach

The recent focus of scientific communities relay on assessing marine environment using different bio-indicators. The Cuddalore coastal water receives different effluents from SIPCOT industrial area through the Uppanar estuary. In this background, the present study deals with the hypothesis that polychetes can be a bio-indicator for assessing environmental conditions of Cuddalore coastal waters. The result revealed that Cluster and MDS plots showed that stations I, II and III, IV grouped together in respect to species composition. Abundance Biomass Curve (ABC) indicates stations I and II are polluted because of the dominance of indicator species of an ecological group (EG-IV & V). These stations (I & II) has been fixed at the confluence point of fishing harbor and Uppanar back waters while other stations (III & IV) in off-shore of the coastal waters. Thus, this study proved that polychaetes having the great potential for assessing the nature of the ecosystem receiving industrial effluents.