Faunal Diversity of Biogeographic Zones: Island of India

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Island ecosystems undoubtedly play a significant role to maintain the ecological equilibrium across the world and eventually contribute the biodiversity of around 20% of the globe, island are characterized by the separated landmass by the influence of any oceanic as well as atmospheric attributes of water from the main landmass and represent geospatially distinctiveness. A total of 100.000 islands are named till now across the globe while 47 countries are known as island nations The availability of intrinsic biological and ecological properties of island ecosystem used to implies the noteworthy evidences for the evolutionary processes of the earth which also define the extraordinary representation of endemic biological organisms due to the geographical isolation and inadequacy.

India is one of the 17 Megadiversity Nation in the world with 101126 species of fauna and 49.003 species of flora distributed in the 3.257 million sq. km landmass and 2.172 million sq. km of Exclusive Economic Zone along 7517 km long coastline. The faunal diversity of Indian aquatic ecosystems have about 31,000 species which includes 20444 species from marine ecosystem, 9456 species from freshwater ecosystem and 3392 species from estuarine ecosystem.

Island are one of the 10 Biogeographic Zones of India which is represented by Andaman and Nicobar hands on Bay of Bengal. Andaman and Nicobar having 572 islands are one of the unique ecosystems in India on biodiversity perspective with high degree of endemism. As a result of it 96 Sanctuaries, 9 National Parks and one Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve have been notified by Government of India to conserve the biodiversity of these islands. During the past five decades Zoological Survey of Indi is extensively exploring the faunal diversity of these islands to document their status and distribution.

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