Biodiversity

Biography

Biography: Nallamuthu Godhantaraman

Abstract

Being a tropical biodiversity hotspot country, India possesses 15% of world biodiversity and has enormous potentials for a sustainable future world. As per its marine natural and living resources are concerned, India has a vast coastline of 7368 km2 and 2.02 million km2 of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This includes, 12 coastal states, 3651 fishing villages, continental shelf of 217,080 km2, world’s largest mangrove ecosystem (the Sundarban), coral reef ecosystems, two most productive seas (Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal) and a vast network of estuaries. Surprisingly, compared to other part of the worlds, India’s marine natural wealth has been relatively unexplored. Marine organisms can be used to produce several novel products that have applications in new medical technologies, in food and feed ingredients and as biofuels. Marine Biotechnology aims to develop methods for producing novel products originating from marine organisms; these are product that could contribute to human health care, to food and feed industries and to the energy industry with applications as new biofuels. The potential of the oceans for these types of products is tremendous but to date applications have fallen short of expectations. In my talk, I will present the status of marine biodiversity with particular reference to Indian coastal marine ecosystems based on the current research, past literature and other known sources of information. Further, my talk will set the stage for discussing the possible linking of marine biology and biotechnology for the sustainable utilization and management of marine bio-resources.