Banthic algae community at two headwater streams of Sekayu, Terengganu

Abstract

Freshwater algae played very important role in energy cycling and stabilizing the dynamic of freshwater ecosystem. This study was conducted to determine the benthic algae communities which appear at two different headwaters at Sekayu, Terengganu and also to recognize the factors affecting the algal occurrence. The two headwaters involved in this study were Sungai Peres and Sungai Bubu with each headwater was divided into upper stream and lower stream in purpose to determine the peryphytic algae communities appear at each site longitudinally. The water physical measurement (temperature, pH, water velocity, Total Suspended Solid (TSS), rainfall and relative humidity) were recorded to determine the water ambient parameter at each site and their relationship with the appearance of benthic algae community from each site. A total of 32 morphospecies were collected from the benthic algae community, of which 15 belong to Chlorophyceae, one Myxophyceae, two Xantophyceae, one Euglenophyceae and 18 Diatom from four times monthly sampling starting from August, September, October and lastly in November. Sungai Pertanian was recorded as having the highest diversity value which is 3.4721, whilst the lowest diversity was recorded Sungai Bubu with 2.7424.