Overview of Marine Biodiversity in Malaysia

Transcription

1 Overview of Marine Biodiversity in Malaysia Affendi Yang Amri Institute of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya Workshop on Marine Environment Pollution 24-25th May 2012 Attorney General s Chambers, Putrajaya

2 The Coral Triangle of the World Veron et al (2009) Delineating the Coral Triangle. Galaxea 11: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste

3 Veron et al. (2009) Veron et al. (2009)

4 Coral Reef Fishes Taken from Dr Gerry Allen

5 Mangroves Giri et al (2011) Global Ecol. Biogeogr 20: World atlas of mangroves (2010)

6 Seagrasses World Atlas of Seagrasses (2003)

7 Taken from Tun et al. (2008) Status of coral reefs in Southeast Asia

8 Taken from Tun et al. (2008)

9 Taken from Tun et al. (2008)

10 Malaysia s Marine Biodiversity: Inventory and Current Status (2011) Kamarruddin Ibrahim, Che Abdul Rahim Mohamed, Mohammad Rozaimi Jamaludin, Kee Alfian Abd Adzis, Fitra Aizura Zulkifli, Lee Jen Nie (Eds) Department of Marine Park Malaysia and EKOMAR, UKM

11 Sabah has a total of 471 species of hard corals (including 4 families of nonscleractinian corals)

12 Total number of Scleractinian coral species in Peninsular Malaysia is 480 species There are 245 species in its South Coast, 63 species in its West Coast and 431 species in its East Coast

13 Sharks, rays and chimaeras, collectively known as Chondrichthyes or cartilaginous fishes Chondrichthyan biodiversity in the waters of Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam is among the richest in this region with at least 140 species Malaysia has 7 out of 8 orders of sharks recorded throughout the world. They are Hexanchiformes, Squaliformes, Squatiniformes, Heterodontiformes, Orectolobiformes, Lamniformes and Carcharhiniformes. The one that is yet to be recorded is Pristiophoriformes (saw sharks). Surveys conducted between 1999 and 2004 found two new species of swell shark namely Cephaloscyllium sarawakensis and C. circulopullum

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15 Ponnampalam (2012) Raffles Bulletin of Zoology

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18 seaweed species found are : 34 species from the Rhodophyta Division, 26 species from the Chlorophyta Division and 20 species from the Phaeophyta Division, plus unidentified specimens making a total of 91 species The most diverse seaweed floras do not occur in the Indo-Malayan region but in subtropical areas, notably southern Australia (Silva, 1992; Bolton, 1994; Phillips, 2001) in Hoeksema (2007)

19 The Decapoda (literally meaning ten footed ) are an order of crustaceans of the class Malacostraca, which include many familiar and economically important species such as crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp

20 After collecting scientific writings and compilations of marine shelled mollusca data in Malaysia, a total of 581 species have been recorded (384 species from class Gastropoda and 197 species from class Bivalvia). The number of species from these available documents seems far too small than the total number of described marine shelled molluscs. Based on essentially non-overlapping regional checklists by Bouchet (2006), 52,525 species of marine molluscs were documented

21 Four families (Cucumariidae, Holothuriidae, Stichopodidae, and Synaptidae), 11 genera, and 33 species of sea cucumber. Only 2.36% (33 out of 1,400 species worldwide) of sea cucumbers

22 Six families (Acanthasteridae, Asteropseidae, Echinasteridae, Mithorodiidae, Ophidiasteridae, and Oreasteridae), 13 genera, and 19 species of sea star only 1.06% (19 out of 1,800 species worldwide) of sea stars

23 Semporna Marine Ecological Expedition Kassem K, Hoeksema B, Affendi YA (Eds) (2012)

24 Mushroom coral species (Family Fungiidae) were counted as a proxy for coral species richness. A total of 44 species were recorded from 63 sites.

25 The reef status team surveyed 106 transects at 60 sites. Using a modified version of the standard Reef Check methodology, they assessed substrate cover, fish densities, invertebrate densities, and impacts. The results showed that for substate cover, only 5 stations out of the 109 (5%) were found to be Excellent, 25 stations (23%) Good, 41 stations (38%) Fair and 38 stations (35%) are at Poor status. The fish density surveys showed low densities of nearly all indicator groups including snapper, parrotfish, humphead wrasse, and groupers.

26 The total reef fish diversity of Semporna recorded consists of 690 species belonging to 265 genera and 72 families. Adding the total number of species recorded from market surveys a combined diversity of 768 species for the entire expedition. Conventional methods of predicting fish richness indicates that Semporna may reach, with further surveys, 966 species. This puts Semporna in the top 5 sites in the Coral Triangle for fish richness.

27 The surveys found 104 species of shrimps, which ties with Ternate, Indonesia as the highest in the Coral Triangle.

28 The surveys of gall crabs and ovulidae have contributed to a growing literature on these relatively unknown taxa. E. Calpurnus verrucosus on Sarcophyton sp.; F. Diminovula culmen on Dendronephthya sp.; G. Ovula ovum feeding on Sarcophyton sp.; H. Naviculavolva deflexa on Rumphella sp

29 The algae (seaweed) surveys found more than 130 species

30 Thank you

31 Acknowledgements The Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya SEABUDS