Abstract To see the diversity and spatio-temporal variation of the avifauna along the inter-tidal rocky shore tide pools, a study was carried out in 2021 across the two coastal districts, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri of Maharashtra State, India. 30 species belonging to 6 orders and 11 families were documented after surveying 27 Rocky shore locations, from which 8 species are of high priority and listed under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 schedule II showing long term rapid declining trend. To see the availability of the prey species for the Avifauna, commonly available seaweed species from the tide pools were sampled in approximately equal volumes for the associated macrofauna, revealed 11 benthic macrofaunal groups. Amphipoda showed the highest composition (49.66 ± 18.09 SD%) with average abundance of (129.80 ± 36.03 SD individuals/ 100 grams seaweed); while, Gastropoda showed the highest biomass composition (32.88 ± 2.67 SD%) with average biomass of (315.09 ± 72.24 SD mg/100 grams seaweed). Diversity indices for the avifauna showed high Shannon diversity and Evenness during post-monsoon (2.85 and 0.72) respectively; and, for the Macrofauna during monsoon (1.67) and post-monsoon (0.48) respectively. ANOVA revealed Significant variation among the environmental parameters across seasons namely, pH, DO, Conductivity, TDS, Salinity, Turbidity, Water and Air temperatures. In macrofaunal abundance Gastropoda and Polychaeta; while, in the macrofaunal biomass Polychaeta showed significant variation with p < 0.05. Spearman’s correlation test showed several significant correlations between environmental parameters and macrofauna across seasons. Canonical Correspondence Analysis showed macrofaunal biomass has more tolerance to environmental parameters compare to macrofaunal and avifaunal abundance. Regression Analysis showed no significant relationship between macrofaunal abundance-biomass and avifaunal abundance; however, macrofaunal abundance showed slight increasing trend and macrofaunal biomass showed decreasing trend towards avifaunal abundance.
Bhave et al. (Wed,) studied this question.