Kochi, March 17 – The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) has launched a two-year, ₹4.986 crore research program to explore fishery resources associated with seamount ecosystems in the Arabian Sea, with a strong focus on commercially and ecologically significant cephalopods.
Funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the project aims to document the diversity, distribution, ecology, and biology of squid, cuttlefish, and octopus populations concentrated around seamount regions in the eastern Arabian Sea.
This initiative aligns with the third objective of the Deep Ocean Mission, reflecting the Centre's efforts to deepen scientific and economic understanding of marine resources.
A key outcome of the project is the development of Artificial Intelligence-based tools for automated species identification.
These tools are expected to enhance taxonomic precision, reduce manual classification time, and support scalable monitoring of deep-sea biodiversity, an area that remains largely unexplored in Indian waters.
The research is being conducted jointly by CMFRI's Kochi headquarters and its Mangaluru Regional Centre, in collaboration with the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal.
The initial exploratory survey has already been completed, targeting selected seamounts in the southeastern Arabian Sea.
Field operations were carried out aboard CMFRI's research vessel, F.V. Silver Pompano, led by senior scientists, alongside parallel sampling missions conducted from Azheekal Fishing Harbour in Kollam.
The surveys focused on mapping cephalopod assemblages and assessing their association with seamount habitats.
According to project investigators, the findings are expected to provide critical insights into deep-sea ecosystem dynamics and inform sustainable exploitation strategies.
This is particularly significant given the growing global interest in seamounts, which are increasingly recognized as biodiversity hotspots supporting dense populations of demersal and benthopelagic species.
Seamounts, underwater elevations rising over 100 metres from the ocean floor, are known to host rich biological communities due to nutrient upwelling and unique habitat structures.
As scientific and commercial interest in these ecosystems grows, the CMFRI-led initiative could play a pivotal role in shaping India's long-term deep-sea fisheries and conservation policies.
