Substrate and soft coral community composition and diversity at Japanese shipwreck, Sarawak

• Main Author: Mohammad Faiz, Sudin
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak(UNIMAS) 2015
• Subjects: Q Science (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/30387/2/Faiz.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/30387/4/Faiz%20full.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/30387/

Coral reefs are main component of marine ecosystem. They act as sources of food and nursery breeding ground for fishes. Soft corals are the component inside the coral reefs that helps in shaping the ecosystem. Artificial reefs have been used as recreational purpose and tourism industry There is no data being recorded about Japanese shipwreck in Kuching The objectives are to determine the composition and percentage cover of soft community at Japanese shipwreck; to map the location of soft coral community for the navigational purposes; to relate distribution of soft coral in relation to substrate type at shipwreck. Random quadrate method was used to determine the soft coral composition and percentage cover. From the result, percentage of soft coral is ranging from 22% to 44%. The highest is at Stern Port followed by Bow Starboard, Bow Port and Stern Starboard. Only one genus been found which is Juceella sp. Sand dominated almost all the stations which is