<span style="font-size:15.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-ansi-language:EN-IN;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Morphological comparison of different <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Caulerpa</i> J.V. Lamouroux species along Maharashtra and Gujarat coast, India.</span>

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:calibri;="" mso-ansi-language:en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="">Species of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Caulerpa</i> form an important component, of the algal group of intertidal ecosystem. Morphological variations among 8 species of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Caulerpa</i> collected from Gujarat and Maharashtra coast were studied. The genus showed marked differences in morphological characters between species collected from different sites. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">C. taxifolia</i> collected from Malvan recorded highest height of 272 mm. Crowded assimilators were observed in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">C. microphysa</i> (5.89/2 cm stolon). The protected environment such as tide pools is found to be more conducive as larger specimens were collected from these areas; here reduced wave action allowed species to grow relatively larger.</span>