Research Projects

The Arabian Sea is characterised by several unique seasonal and spatial variations in terms of biological, physical, and chemical features which could directly influence the microbial processes. Metabolism of bacteria strongly influences carbon fluxes. Studies in bacterial metabolism in the euphotic zone shows that bacterial biomass is often comparable to phytoplankton biomass and bacterial carbon demand (BCD) is often equivalent to about one-half of the primary production. Since bacteria directly use only DOM, high BCD means that major fluxes of organic matter occur through dissolved organic carbon (DOC) pool in the pathway, phytoplankton→DOC→bacteria→protozoa. Since bacteria mediate substantial carbon fluxes, understanding bacterial utilization of organic matter is a significant problem in oceanography. The measurement of growth yield and its variation is important for understanding the role of bacteria in carbon fluxes. There is only limited information at present on the magnitude and mechanisms of bacterial cycling of organic matter and how they are influenced by the sequential eutrophic and oligotrophic productivity regimes in the Arabian Sea. During my tenure in National Institute of Oceanography, as a part of a project funding by MoES, GOI, I have participated in 10 multidisciplinary cruises from 2018-2019. The study was intended to generate a new dataset in biological oceanography, with emphasis on the lower level plankton food web components, based on advanced measurements. The samples were collected through monthly sampling sessions in 10 cruises along 10 transects perpendicular to the west coast of India between Kanyakumari to Okha. This project had collected high resolution near shore oceanographic and water quality data from the near shore waters to offshore waters to a depth of 2000 m along the west coast of India. I have generated base line data from 950 samples from 2018-2019, on bacterial abundance, viral abundance, bacterial production, viral production, bacterial biomass, along with measurement on various physical and chemical oceanographic data. However, microbiome analysis of around 150 samples encompassing the entire south eastern Arabian sea with an extremely good spatial and temporal coverage needs to be processed further. The present proposal intends to perform the metagenome analysis of the marine samples understand the nature of microbial diversity and to understand the most relevant taxa in terms of its function. This will help us to assess the different metabolic pathways of the microbial communities, that help them survive and establish in different environments, and also to understand their substrate utilisation and metabolism. The metabolic strategies adopted by microorganisms to survive and utilize different carbon sources in their microenvironment and how they are ultimately contributing to the carbon flux in a molecular level can be unveiled unravelled through this study