Study of spatial and temporal variation of groupers (famailyserranidae) at Pulau Bidong

Abstract

The study was conducted at Pulau Bidong, Terengganu, which was one of the unprotected coral areas in the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. The study sites were focused at the areas in front of the island, where three transect lines were set up at different depths. Six sets of temporal variations were used for this study to see the effect of time and grouper abundances. Line intercept transect and fish belt transect were the two main methods used in this study. Four groupers species, from two genuses, were observed during the study period. The species observed were Cephalopholis boenak, Cephalopholis cyanostigma, Cephalopholis microprion and Epirzephelus fasciatus. C. boenak and C. cyarwstigma were the most dominant species and they were found at all sites but were highest at middle and slope areas, and E. fasciatus was the least abundant species observed. In this study, significant difference was observed for number of individual groupers and sites (P<0.05), with an exception for E. fasciatus, but there was no significant difference (P>0.05) for the number of groupers and time for temporal variation study. Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient analysis, the mean number of groupers (ind./500m2 ) for each site was not significantly correlated to the coral complexity (P>0.05). This analysis indicated that the coral complexity did not give any effect to the number of groupers at Pulau Bidong.