K. KATHIRESAN
Abstract
The water hyacinth, when it is decomposed in mangrove water, attracts juveniles of prawns, shrimps, crabs and fish, in all the four seasons of a year. The decomposing weed attracts the hermit crabs up to 72- times greater in number during pre-monsoon, the prawns 70 times more in summer, the shrimps 14-times higher in pre-monsoon and the fish juveniles 6-fold in pre-monsoon, than those in control.