Tropical marine community response to Neogene environmental change in western India
Tropical marine community response to Neogene environmental change in western India
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The marine fauna of western India offers a rare window into how tropical marine communities responded to major Neogene environmental upheavals, including the closure of the Tethyan Seaway and the onset of the monsoon system. We focus on the paleobiology of Oligo-Miocene marine communities — how species composition, life history, and ecological structure shifted under these pressures at local and regional scale — using trace element and stable isotope signatures preserved in calcitic bivalve shells as a proxy to reconstruct the regional environments these organisms actually lived through.
For more see Dutta et al, 2020, Dutta and Chattopadhyay, 2022, Chattopadhyay et al, 2025, Venu Gopal et al, 2025, Joshi et al, 2026
Molluscan biodiversity baseline along the Indian coast and its drivers
Molluscan biodiversity baseline along the Indian coast and its drivers
Tropical coasts hold some of the richest marine biodiversity on Earth, yet many remain poorly documented — the Indian coastline being a notable gap. Its two sub-parallel coasts span a wide latitudinal range with strikingly different settings: the east shaped by heavy siliciclastic input and fluctuating salinity from Bay of Bengal rivers, the west by a broad shelf and high Arabian Sea productivity. This contrast offers a natural experiment for how environmental parameters shape marine molluscan diversity. We compile bivalve species distribution data from the literature and field collections, pairing it with deeper-time fossil data to distinguish stable diversity patterns from those already shifting — key to separating human-driven decline from natural variability, and to setting conservation baselines current monitoring can't supply.
For more see Sarkar et al, 2019, Chattopadhyay et al, 2021
Reliability of paleontological data
Reliability of paleontological data
Fossils provide an essential record of how life on Earth has evolved. However, the fossil record is incomplete, primarily because the dead remains have to endure the vagaries of nature to emerge as a fossil. Natural processes leading to fossilization often create biases that impact the record. Apart from these, anthropogenic influences determine the fate of the fossils after their discovery and play a significant role in our ability to use them meaningfully to reconstruct past biodiversity. We try to understand such influences affecting the inferences drawn from the fossil record.
For more see Chattopadhyay et al, 2013, Bhattacherjee et al, 2021, Raja et al, 2022, Dunne et al, 2025
Predator-prey dynamics of the past
Predator-prey dynamics of the past
Biotic interactions, especially predation, have drawn considerable attention in recent times as an important agent of natural selection. The fossil record of drilling and shell-crushing predation is unique where evidence of predation is preserved. Drilling predation is often used as a model system by paleobiologists to evaluate evolutionary and ecological effects of such predatory interaction on the composition of molluscan communities. Using drilling frequencies, it is possible to test quantitatively specific predictions regarding predatory behavior and prey response in deep time. We use experimental data, ecological observation and paleoecological proxies to test such predictions in molluscan community.
For more see Klompmaker et al, 2019, Chattopadhyay et al, 2014, 2020, 2024
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