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Fungal Diversity from Mangrove Sediment and Crabs
Nur Ain Shakirah Bt Abd Rahim
Dr Maizah Bt M. Abdullah
Bachelor of Science (Marine Biology)
School of Marine and Environmental Science
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu
Mangrove is a highly productive ecosystem as they provide values to
environment and human. This study was conducted to investigate fungal
diversity in the mangrove sediment and gut contents of mangrove crabs;
Perisesarma spp. and Parasesarma spp. Fungi was isolated using colony
formation unit (CFU) technique with three dilution factors and direct plating
technique. Results showed that the greatest number of 239 colonies counted
from sediment diluted from 10 -6 whereas a total of 224 colonies from dilution
factor 10 -4 and followed by dilution factor 10 -2 with 110 colonies counted. The
dilution factor 10 -6 was chosen as the optimum concentration for CFU counting
from sediment samples. Eight species were morphologically identified as
Aspergillus spp., Fusarium spp., Penicillium spp., Rhizopus spp., Cladosporium
spp and Trichoderma spp. isolated from sediment while Fusarium spp.,
Alternaria spp. and Pestalotiopsis spp. isolated from crabs. Therefore, this study
contributes insight knowledge about the health of mangrove ecosystem.
1783 | UMT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY 2018