Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Directors of the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (Dr Satish R Shetye, Dr S.W.A. Naqvi, and Prof. Sunil Kumar Singh) for the facility and encouragement. Part of the sampling for this study in connection with the Marine Ecosystem Dynamics of the Eastern Arabian Sea (MEDAS) was funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) through National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Chennai. India. We thank Dr M. Sudhakar, the former Director, Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE), Kochi, and Dr M.V. Ramanamurty, Director, NCCR, Chennai for their wholehearted support to the MEDAS program. We thank all the field participants in the GoM during 2010-2011 and also along the Southwest coast of India in 2018. The authors thank Mr Rajasekhar and Mr Sundar, vessel Management Cell, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, as well as the Captain and crew of ORV Sagar Purvi cruise in September 2018 to complete the field measurements under a hostile sea environment.