Kochi, March 17 (NationPress) The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) has launched a two-year research initiative worth Rs 4.986 crore aimed at investigating fishery resources associated with seamount ecosystems in the Arabian Sea, particularly focusing on both commercially and ecologically vital cephalopods.

Backed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, this project intends to catalogue the diversity, distribution, ecology, and biology of populations of squid, cuttlefish, and octopus found around seamounts in the eastern Arabian Sea.

This initiative is part of Vertical-3 of the Deep Ocean Mission, underlining the government's commitment to enhancing the scientific and economic understanding of marine resources.

A significant outcome of the project will be the creation of Artificial Intelligence-powered tools for automated species identification.

These innovative tools are projected to improve taxonomic accuracy, decrease the time required for manual classifications, and facilitate large-scale monitoring of deep-sea biodiversity, an area that remains largely uncharted in Indian waters.

The research is a collaborative effort between CMFRI’s headquarters in Kochi and its Mangaluru Regional Centre, in partnership with the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal.

The initial exploratory survey has already been completed, focusing on specific seamounts in the southeastern Arabian Sea.

Fieldwork was conducted aboard CMFRI’s research vessel, the F.V. Silver Pompano, led by senior scientists, with additional sampling missions taking place from the Azheekal Fishing Harbour in Kollam.

The surveys primarily concentrated on mapping cephalopod assemblages and examining their relationships with seamount habitats.

Project researchers anticipate that the results will yield essential insights into deep-sea ecosystem dynamics and contribute to sustainable exploitation strategies.

This initiative gains importance as global interest in seamounts rises, which are increasingly acknowledged as biodiversity hotspots that support dense populations of both demersal and benthopelagic species.

Seamounts, defined as underwater elevations rising more than 100 meters from the ocean floor, are known to harbor rich biological communities due to nutrient upwelling and unique habitat structures.

As the scientific and commercial interest in these ecosystems expands, the CMFRI-led initiative could significantly influence India’s long-term policies on deep-sea fisheries and conservation.