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International Journal of Marine Science 2014, Vol.4, No.65, 1-7
http://ijms.biopublisher.ca
1
Research Report Open Access
The differences of soft corals spatial distributions between sheltered and exposed
sites at Pongok Island in South of Bangka and Tegal Island in Lampung Bay,
Indonesia
Rozirwan
1,2
, D. G. Bengen
1
, N. P. Zamani
1
, H. Effendi
1
, Chaidir
3
1. Program Study of Marine Science, Bogor Agricultural University, Kampus Darmaga, Bogor 16680, Indonesia
2. Program Study of Marine Science, University of Sriwijaya, Kampus Indralaya KM 32, Ogan Ilir, Sumatera Selatan 30662, Indonesia
3. The Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, Jakarta code pos10340, Indonesia
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol.4, No.65 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0065
Received: 22 Jul., 2014
Accepted: 18 Aug., 2014
Published: 10 Nov., 2014
Copyright
©
2014
Rozirwan et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Rozirwan et al., 2014, The differences of soft corals spatial distributions between sheltered and exposed sites at Pongok Island in South of Bangka and Tegal
Island in Lampung Bay, Indonesia, India, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.65 1
-
7 (doi
Abstract
This study is aimed to determine the differences of the soft corals between sheltered and exposed area in Pongok Island,
Soulth of Bangka and Tegal Island in Lampung Bay, Indonesia. The physical-chemical parameters of waters were measured in the
field and laboratorium. Soft coral types and covers were measured using line intercept transect (LIT) and quadrant transects methods.
Eigtht types of soft corals classified in four genera (Lobophytum, Nephthea, Sarcophyton and Sinularia) were found in both sites, six
species were identified in the waters of South Bangka (at 9 meters depth) and two species (at 3 meters depth). In Tegal Island waters
(closed waters), only 3 species from the genus Sinularia were recorded (at 2-5m depth). There were 2 stations at Pongok Island
namely, PGK1 and PGK2, while in Tegal Island, there were 4 stations namely MCN1, TGL2, GSN3 dan LHK4. Coral diversity was
considered as medium category, similarity indexes were low to moderate, except at PGK2 station was considered high, and for the
level of dominance, there were no type of coral that dominates. Principal component analyses showed that both waters can be
classified based on their physical-chemical characteristic, which were turbidity, temperature, depth, currents, phosphate, nitrate and
substrate type.
Keywords
Coral Biodiversity; Soft corals; Pongok Island; Tegal Island
Introduction
Coral reef ecosystem has a very important ecological
role as feeding and nursery grounds, spawning, care
and protection. This ecosystem consists of species of
hard coral and soft corals (Nybakken, 1982). There are
about 96 genera of soft coal, in 23 families in the
Indo-Pacific (Fabricius and Alderslade, 2001). Soft
corals in Indonesia reported about 219 species in 28
genera, 4 families (Manuputty, 2002).
The distribution of soft corals is strongly influenced
by the characteristics of the aquatic environment such
as temperature, turbidity, depth, salinity, currents,
water pH, nutrients, and etc. (Wolanski, 2000).
(Manuputty, 2010) found 30 species of
Sinularia
sp in
the waters of the islands Derawan East Kalimantan,
but it has not been proven that distance between coral
habitat and mainland is influenced by human activity.
The growth rate of
Sinularia dura
in the Pramuka
Island waters was affected by th.e seasonal variations,
turbidity and currents. (Arafat, 2009) recorded that
Lobophytum strictum
growth rate was varied
throughout the year and the highest growth was in
period from July and October.
The distribution of soft corals was decreased with
decreasing the water quality. Changes in water quality
led to multi-faceted shifts from phototrophic to
heterotrophic benthic communities, and from diverse
coral communities to low-diversity communities
dominated by macroalgae. Turbidity was the best
predictor of biota existence; hence turbidity
measurements remain essential to directly monitor
water quality on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The
influenes of turbidity on hard corals is that it can
decline their density four times compered to soft coral
(Fabricius et al., 2012).
Temperature is one of the important factors in the
growth of soft corals. Water temperature for coral