Diversity of meiofauna and its association to seagrass beds characteristics in Pramuka Island, Seribu Islands

Abstract

Seagrass beds is one of the coastal ecosystem that has many biological benefits for other marine biota, like fishes, shrimps, and shells. Those marine biotas take advantages from seagrass beds as habitat for their communities. One example of marine biota that associated with seagrass beds is meiofauna. Meiofauna is an organism with size between 0.063 to 1 mm and live interstitially between substrate cavities. Ecologically, meiofauna plays important roles as mineral decomposer and food for bigger organisms. This research aims to study the relation between the diversity of meiofauna associated with seagrass beds in Pramuka Island, Seribu Islands. The research was conducted in 3 stations, each consists of 15 meiofauna sampling points. The samples were collected by using PVC core that embedded in the substrate. Meiofauna that has been found in research stations was consisting of 6 phyla, 8 classes, 17 orders, 31 families, and 35 genera. The most abundant phyla was Nematodes. Meiofauna has higher abundance in finer substrate which contain more organic material. Aside from that, the abundance of meiofauna was also affected by the seagrass density.