Assessing Environmental Factors on the Growth and Distribution of Mangrove Seedlings Along the Bintuni Riverbank Area, Bintuni Bay, West Papua, Indonesia

Abstract

Bintuni Bay is considered one of the largest mangrove ecosystems in the world, and it has benefited a lot to local inhabitants and the surrounding ecosystem by underpinning and maintaining ecosystem balances. This study assesses various environmental factors that affect the flow of the Bintuni River and mangrove ecosystems as a result of potential degradation due to various anthropogenic activities and small-scale industries along the river. Several environmental parameters were collected, measured, and analyzed in the laboratory, while mangrove seedlings were measured and calculated at five different locations to obtain the importance value index (IVI). The results indicated slightly varied environmental parameters and concentrations at the five locations. However, there was no significant difference in the environmental parameters between the five different locations (p-value of 0.953 > 0.05, 95% of CI). Mangrove seedlings were distributed evenly along the five different locations which were indicated by the number of individuals (ind/ha). There was no significant correlation among these environmental parameters because of the low concentrations of chemical and biological compounds in the water. Moreover, mangroves can regenerate, grow, and exist even in extreme and unbalanced environmental niches.