Abstract:
This study was conducted to determine the feeding rate of Scarus sp. at different time
period in a day, correlation between the abundance of Scarus sp. and bethic
composition and to identify the species of seaweed collected from their grazed
substratum. The sampling for this study was conducted at 4 sites located at Long
beach, Redang Island. As for the feeding rate study, 3 individuals for each chose adult
species (S. ghobban, S. rivulatus and S. niger) and juveniles at different time periods
(9 am, 12 pm and 4pm). Overall, the feeding rate is not significantly different (P >
0.05) between species but showed significant different (P < 0.05) when compared to
different time periods. A total of 8 species of the genus Scarus were encountered and
identified throughout 4 sampling sites and the relationship between the abundance of
Scarus sp. and benthic composition was determined using Spearman rank correlation.
It was found that the abundance of both adult and juvenile Scarus sp. is significantly
correlated with the percentage of dead coral with algae (DCA) (rs
=
0.4168, P =
0.0428) but showed no correlation with the percentage of live coral (rs
=
-0.019, P =
0.94283) in all sampling sites.
