Macrobenthic Community and Environmental Drivers in the Rushikulya Estuary, India

The Rushikulya estuary on India's eastern coast is adjacent to a major Olive Ridley turtle mass-nesting site. This dataset documents 43 macrobenthic taxa across four seasons, identifying salinity, nitrite, sand, and silt as key environmental drivers. It was authored by Pragyan Priyadarshini and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling relationships between macrobenthic community structure and environmental variables like salinity and nitrite.
• Assessing ecological health and disturbance levels using bioindicator species and indices like M-AMBI and AMBI.
• Establishing a biodiversity baseline for monitoring climate change impacts in a turtle rookery-associated estuary.
• Identifying spatiotemporal distribution patterns of opportunistic and tolerant macrobenthic species.

Strengths

• Documents 43 distinct macrobenthic taxa, with quantified dominance of polychaetes (66.97%).
• Data spans four seasons, allowing for analysis of temporal variation.
• Identifies specific environmental drivers (salinity, nitrite, sand, silt) with a reported correlation (Rho 0.672).
• Includes results from established ecological indices (M-AMBI, AMBI) indicating community status.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small (95.8 KB), indicating a limited scope of observations.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Field study analyzing macrobenthic community and environmental parameters.

Time Range

Spans four seasons; specific years are not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 04:52:45; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Rushikulya estuary, southern Odisha, eastern coast of India.