Banding patterns and growth of Porites corals in Port Dickson

Abstract

Annual density banding pattern in massive Porites corals changes with the differences of environmental condition. Alizarin red dye was used to validate the deposition of skeleton by corals to determine the banding pattern. The banding pattern for Porites corals in Port Dickson was validated where the accretion of bright luminescent band started on October. The samples were then calculated for the banding and linear growth of the corals. The breadth of annual luminescent band was measured up to 0.01 cm accuracy for the linear growth rate. The linear extension rate range from 0.95 ± 0.01 cm yr1

to

3.42 ± 0.01 cm yr-'. All the samples showed no significant changes except for coral core PD-H showed significant negative growth (P<0.05). This was due to the low numbers in samples. The changes of growth in corals were closely related to the increase of SST. However, no significant changes were observed for the 4 decade records. The relationship of linear extension rate with SST was explored through linear regression and the statistic showed that there was no relationship between the two variables (P>0.05). However, it was suggested that the growth of Porites corals in Port Dickson was highly affected by sedimentation due to the high input of sediment, a result from the rapid development along the coastlines.