PROPAGATION OF SEAGRASS IN 25 PPT

INTRODUCTION

Seagrass is one of the marine flowering plant which adapted to sandy, soft sandy sediments and usually can be found in the sheltered places. In this world, there are less than 70 species of seagrass that can be found. Based on the habitat, either it is temperate or tropical, there are different species that can be found. In Malaysia, there are several species of seagrass that can be found, which are Halophila ovalis, H. spinulosa, Cymodocea rotundata, Halodule pinifolia, H. uninervis, Enhalus acoroides and others. Those species can be found at several places such as Merambong Shoal, Johor.

In this experiment, the species that is being used is Enhalus acoroides. This seagrass species is very important to our ecosystems, especially in aquaculture industry. This is because this species gives protection to the small fishes by gives sheltered place from being eaten. This species also can be used as ‘ulam’ as food consumption in some country. This seaweed species also helps in reduce soil erosion at the sea and also can improve the water quality at the sea.

OBJECTIVES

·         To observe and study about the growth rate of Enhalus acoroides through the length of leaf and length of root.

·         To study how different salinity can be affected towards the growth rate of the species.

APPARATUS AND MATERIALS

a)    Seeds of Enhalus acoroides

b)   Artificial salts (create seawater)

c)    Any beaker/tank which is transparent

d)    Spectrophotometer

PROCEDURE

a)    Tank/beaker is filled up and added with artificial seawater to create artificial seawater.

b)   According to each group, salinity of seawater is set up until 25 ppt only by using spectrophotometer to monitor water salinity.

c)    After tank set up is done, each student get two seed of Enhalus acoroides.

d)    First seed is put in the beaker which have placed at the laboratory while the other seed is put in the beaker that can be carried to home/college.

e)    The length of leaf is recorded and the growth rate is recorded.

f)     The data is taken one times per three days.

RESULTS

DATE	LENGTH (CM)	OBSERVATIONS
24th Oct 2016	1.5	·         There are some hairy-look like at the bottom ·         Only small part of leaf grow ·         Submerged at the bottom
26th Oct 2016	1.8	·         Hairy-look like increasing ·         Have one leaf and grow bigger ·         Submerged at the bottom
28th Oct 2016	2.0	·         At the bottom, the hairy-look like is increasing in number ·         The leaf grew bigger ·         Submerged at the bottom
30th Oct 2016	2.2	·         Hairy-look like are more obvious ·         There are two leaf and have something between them ·         Submerged at the bottom
1st Nov 2016	2.8	·         Already have 3 leaf ·         Still having hairy-look like ·         Start to floating
3rd Nov 2016	3.0	·         Still floating in the water ·         All the leaf become more bigger
5th Nov 2016	3.3	·         All the three leaf grew more bigger ·         Still floating
7th Nov 2016	3.4	·         There is something between all three leaf ·         Still floating
9th Nov 2016	3.5	·         4th leaf starting to appear ·         Still floating
11th Nov 2016	3.8	·         The 4th grew more bigger ·         Still floating
13th Nov 2016	4.1	·         All the leaf still growing ·         Floating in the water ·         Hairy-look like become brownish in colour
15th Nov 2016	4.4	·         Can feel the hard thing at the bottom of the seed which have been covered by the hairy-look like
17th Nov 2016	4.5	·         Can see the root started to appear ·         Floating in the water

Table 1 Growth rate at home/college

DATE	LENGTH (CM)	OBSERVATIONS
First day, 24th October 2016	1.5	·         Submerged at the bottom of the beaker ·         Only appear a small size of leaf ·         There are some hairy-look like at the bottom of the seed
Last day, 17th November 2016	5.0	·         Floating in the water ·         There are 4 leaf that growing ·         The root more appear at the bottom of the seed

Table 2 Growth rate at the laboratory

DISCUSSION

The objective of this experiment is to study about growth rate of Enhalus acoroides, which is one of the seagrass species. From this experiment, we observed how they are growing, how the leaf started to appear, how the root started to appear, and recorded all the observation. All the data and observation have been tabulated in Table 1 as above.

This experiment is conducted by different salinity of water, which are 25 ppt, 28 ppt and

30 ppt. All the data that shown in Table 1 is the data for the growth rate of E. acoroides at 25 ppt. Based from the data given, we can say that this species can be cultured by using water at 25 ppt. From the Table 1, we noticed that there some dates which have high differences with the previous date that data is being taken. This is because during the starting stage, all the data is taken by measuring the seed in the beaker/tank. But after noticed there are some errors during the recording the data, the data is being recorded by placing the seed at A4 paper and measure the length of leaf. After that, we noticed that data is showing a smooth growth rate, in term of length of leaf. Thus, in order to avoid the error during conducting this experiment, what need to be done during record the data is the seed must be put on the A4 paper before measure it. It is to avoid some parallax error which can lead to error in data taken.

There some differences when Table 1 and Table 2 is compared from the above. Firstly is the end length of leaf. We noticed that the final length of this species during 17^th November 2016 in Table 2 is more higher compared with Table 1, with the different in length is about 0.5 cm. The different of length can be caused by the several factors. For example, the data in Table 2 is taken from the laboratory, which the seed is placed near the window in an enclosed room. That place have been sheltered from the rain. Although the weather is not sunny, but the light in that room encourages the seagrass to grow. When compared with the data in Table 1, the seagrass in placed at the outdoor of the room, which have being exposed to the different weathers, like rainy, strong wind and so on. On top of that, the seagrass also have high possibilities to be contaminated with insects which can insert into the beaker.

At the end, we can say that there are many factors which can influence the growth rate of this seagrass species.

CONCUSION

As a conclusion, based from the result, we can say that the different salinity can give effect towards the growth rate of Enhalus acoroides. On top of that, light gives very huge encouragement to growth rate of this species.

REFERENCES

Japar Sidik Bujang, Muta Harah Zakaria, Aziz Bin Arshad (April 2006). Distribution And Significance Of Seagrass Ecosystems In Malaysia.