The community structure of periphyton in Awarange Bay, Barru District, Province of South Sulawesi

The periphyton is considered to have ecological role in coastal water ecosystems; however, the information on community structures of periphyton in Awarange Bay where a developed aquaculture in South Sulawesi is still scarce. This study was aimed to analyze community structure of periphyton in sea grass meadow within Awarange Bay waters. Three stations were selected which were adjacent to shrimp culture under traditional plus system (Station I); hatchery and traditional plus shrimp culture (Station II) and super intensive and traditional plus shrimp culture (Station III). The results of this study revealed that Bacillariophyceae and Maxiliopoda were the two major classes of phytoplankton and zooplankton, respectively, by contributing 38 and 50%, respectively, of the periphyton in Awarange Bay. Station II had more genus (10 genus) compared to that observed in Station I and III which only had 6 genus. In addition, as a consequence, Station II had higher diversity index (0.66) compared to that observed in Station I and III (0.29 and 0.25, respectively).  Furthermore, the equitability index in Station II was higher compared to that observed in Station I and III indicating the species of periphyton in Station II was equally distributed. In contrast, there was domination of such specific species of periphyton in Station I and III. Species of genus had higher contribution on the differences within Stations I and II as well as Stations II and III. The cluster analysis showed two main clusters of phytoplankton in Awarange Bay where Stations I and III were in the same cluster with 88% of similarity percentage. The community structure of periphyton is influenced by water quality; as water quality of the three stations were influenced by different aquaculture facilities therefore, water quality measurement should be conducted in providing a better understanding in the community structure in Awarange Bay.