Common Seaweeds of India

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Important Sea Coasts of India. 3. Chlorophyceae (Green Seaweeds). 4. Phaeophyceae (Brown Seaweeds). 5. Rhodophyceae (Red Seaweeds). References. Index.

India has a coastline of more than 7000 km and an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) over 2 million km2. A total of 770 species of seaweeds have been reported from different parts of the Indian coasts which includes 184 species of green, 166 species of brown and 420 species of red (Sahoo et al., 2001). Unlike the oriental countries like Japan, China, Korea, etc. India does not have a long history about the uses of seaweeds as food and various other purposes. However, in recent years a lot of interests have been generated by the industries, academia and researchers in the field of seaweeds research and utilization. One of the most difficult job in this area is the identification of various species. This book deals with identification of some of the common seaweeds of Indian coast.