Diversity of intertidal, epibiotic, and fouling barnacles (Cirripedia, Thoracica) from Gujarat, northwest India

Abstract

The present work studied the diversity of intertidal, epibiotic, and fouling barnacles in the state of Gujarat, northwest India. In total, eleven species belonging to eight genera and five families were recorded in the present study. The Arabian intertidal species Tetraclita ehsani Shahdadi, Chan & Sari, 2011 and Chthamalus barnesi Achituv & Safriel, 1980 are common in the high- and mid-intertidal rocky shores of Gujarat suggesting that the Gujarat barnacle assemblages are similar to the assemblages in the Gulf of Oman Ecoregion. The biogeographical boundary between the Gulf of Oman and Western Indian ecoregions for barnacles should probably extend southward towards the waters adjacent to Mumbai, where Indo-Pacific species of intertidal barnacles dominate. This study provides the first reports of the common widely distributed balanomorph barnacles Striatobalanus tenuis (Hoek, 1883), Tetraclitella karandei Ross, 1971, Amphibalanus reticulatus (Utinomi, 1967), and lepadid barnacle Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758 in Gujarat, as well as of the chthamalid barnacle Chthamalus barnesi in India.