BIODIVERSITY OF MARINE TUNICATES IN SAMALONA WATERS , SANGKARANG ARCHIPELAGO , INDONESIA

The study aims to know the biodiversity and community structure of marine tunicate in Samalona waters. The present study is part of biodiversity assessment for marine resources of Sangkarang Archipelago SW Makassar Indonesia. Field campaign was conducted from October to November 2016. Sample collection was done at 3 and 7 m depth by using Line Intersection Transect (LIT) method combined with a quadrat (plot). Two 50 m transects were placed parallel to a shore line at three stations (sta.) at Samalona waters. A quadrat (plot) (2.5 m x 2.5 m) was placed side by side of the line transect and all tunicates in the transect was recorded, identified, counted and photographed. Samples were collected by using SCUBA and under water camera. Environmental parameters including water temperatue, salinity, dissolved oxygen, clarity, current and wind speed, were measured in situ. Data were analysed using ecological indices including species composition and density, Shanon Wienner species diversity, Evenness, and Morisita Indices. The result indicates that there are 18 species of tunicates present at 3 m as well as 7 m depth of Samalona waters.. Result of the ecological analysis shows that species diversity can be categorized as moderate and there were no dominant species. Environmental parameters indicates that water quality at Samalona waters was in good condition to support tunicates.


INTRODUCTION
Marine invertebrates as major group living incoral reefs of the Indo-Pacific region are rich for secondary metabolite and are targeted for studying lead compound as marine drug discovery (Sabdono and Radjasa 2008).Radjasa et al (2011) stated that coral reef ecosystem is a source for bioactive compound origin from its associated biotas such as sponge, ascidians, mollusks, bryozoans and cnidarian.
Biodiversity of marine biotas has pushed the discovery of marine natural products that can be developed as a therapeutics candidate.Marine tunicates were potential for inoculum source for endo-symbiotic that can produce anti-bacterial and anti-fungi (Karthikeyan et al. 2009;Litaay et al. 2015;Christine et al. 2015;Nurfadillah et al. 2015;Sardiani et al. 2015;Tahir et al. 2016).Tunicates are also potential antiviral (Murti and Agrawal, 2010), anticancer (Shaala and Youssef, 2015), inhibitor and induces apoptosis of breast (MCF-7; MDA-MB) cancer cells and also used for phase II cancer treatment (Zelek et al. 2006;Michaelson et al. 2012;Atmaca et al. 2013), as inhibitor of breast cancer cells by JNK dependent apoptosis (Gonzalez-Santiago et al. 2006), breast and prostate cancer (Kalimuthu et al. 2014).One of the bioactive compounds produced by tunicate is used to cure refractory soft-tissue sarcomas (Sinko et al. 2012).Sangkarang Archipelago which was previously known as Spermonde is located South West off Makassar, 1 Department of Biology, Hasanuddin University Jl Perintis Kemerdekaan Km 10.Makassar 90245, Indonesia.* Magdalena Litaay Email: mlitaay@fmipa.unhas.ac.id consisting more than a hundred islands.Various marine biodiversity in Sangkarang area have been studied (Moll 1983;Verheij 1993;Massin 1999;Renema and Simon 2001;de Voogd et al. 2006, Pogoreutz et al. 2012;Priosambodo et al.2014).However, diversity of marine tunicates in the Sangkarang region is less studied (Fikruddin, 2013;Mawaleda, 2014).In order to explore bioprospecting of marine tunicate, a basic research on species diversity is needed.Information on biodiversity and distribution of tunicate in this region will provide useful baseline data to support sustainable use of marine resources.

Sample Collection
Sampling of tunicates was done at three different sites (sta.) of Samalona waters, Sangkarang Archipelago South Sulawesi Indonesia (Figure 1).SCUBA was used in collecting sample and LIT at 3 m and 7 m depth at three stations (Figure 1).In each station, a 50 m line transect was placed parallel to shore line and a quadrat (2.5 m x 2.5 m) was applied side by side of transects.All tunicates in the quadrat were recorded, identified, counted and photographed.Sub-sample was taken and brought to laboratory for identification purposes.Environmental parameter was measured in situ.Underwater camera Canon GIS was used to obtain images of species and habitat (English et al. 1997;Brower at al. 1998).Water parameter including type of substrate, pH, temperature, current, salinity, clarity and dissolved oxygen were measured during sampling.Identification of tunicates was based on main morphological characters according to Kott (2005), Page and Kelly (2013), WoRMS (2017).

Data Analysis
Data analysis were based on ecological indices including density, Shanon Wiener diversity index, Dominance Index, Dispersion Index of Morisita (Odum, 1993)

Species Richness
The result of species richness is provided in Table 2. Table 2 shows that D. molle were more abundant at 3 m depth reef flat in all stations.This species is small in size, living solitary or forming a colony.Hence, D. molle can be found in a big colony at different habitats and depths.Previous finding indicated that Didemnum can grow at different habitats (Bullard and Whitlatch 2008;Carman et al., 2010).

Diversity, Morisita and Dominance Indices
Table 3 shows value of species diversity and Morisita indices at different sites and depths in Samalona waters.Based on criteria used in this study, diversity of tunicate is classified as low at 3 m depth at sta. 1 and sta.2, while moderate at other depths and sites.Values of Morisita index indicates that tunicates are randomly distributed at all depths and sites (Table 3).
Table 4 shows the value of dominance index ranges from 0 to 0.68.High values were recorded for Didemnum molle at 3 m depth at sta. 2 as well as sta. 1.This indicates a moderate dominance of particular species at those sites.As also described in Table 4, value of dominance index was less than 0.5 or close to zero.

Relationship Between Tunicates With Environment Parameters
The result of Correspondence Analysis (CA) between species composition and environmental parameters is given in Figure 2. Tunicates from Sangkarang archipelago is less documented.This study was the first record for marine tunicate from Samalona waters of this archipelago.This study indicates that a number of tunicate species for this area is less than recorded from Baranglompo island of Sangkarang.Mawaleda (2014) found 33 species of tunicates at coral reef areas of Baranglompo waters.However, this study shows more tunicates species are found in Samalona waters compared to those recorded for other islands of Sangkarang: 7 species (Lae-Lae), 9 species (Bone Batang) and 10 species (Badi) waters (Fikruddin, 2013).Tunicate class Ascidiacea is the most diverse group, as 700 species have been recorded in the Australian waters, while Thaliacea is having less than 100 species worldwide and Appendicularia is about 60 species known worldwide (Kott, 2005).
species i ni = Total no of individuals of species i in all quadrats A = Total area of quadrats (plot) Species composition = ( No of individual sp-i /Total no of individual) number of plot/transect =F(x) N = Total no of individual inside plot/transect = [F(X)] (X) X2 = Sum of the squares of the number of individual inside plot = [F(X)] (X2) Criteria : Id < 1.0 = Randomly distributed Id = 1.0 = Uniformly distributed Id > 1.0 = Clumped distributed Correspondance Analysis (CA) was used to observe the relationship between tunicates with water parameters (SPSS ver 23).

Table 2 .
Table1.The occurrence of tunicates at different sites and depth of Samalona water Species richness at different sites and depths of Samalona waters (ind/500m 2 )

Table 4 .
The Result of Dominance Analysis

Table 5 .
Environment parameters at Samalona waters Kiuru et al. 2014estimated that marine and coastal environments host about 90% of all organisms living on earth.Here, we found 18 species tunicate at Samalona waters, this number is still low compare to a worldwide known tunicates.Marine resources particularly in coastal areas and small islands received main pressure from natural catastrophic and anthropogenic activities.Human activities in main land as use of unfriendly fishing method, overfishing, pollution , coastal development and global warning has have big impact on marine resources.These also can contribute to loss of biodiversity of marine resources.Sangkarang archipelago has more than a hundred islands, biodiversity of tunicates in this area are still questionable.Therefore, more studies on biodiversity of tunicates in this area is needed.Moll H. 1983.Zonation and diversity of scleractinian on reefs of South Sulawesi Indonesia.[Thesis].Netherland: Leiden University.Page M and Kelly M. 2013.Awesome Ascidians, a Guide to the Sea Squirts of New Zealand.TC Media Ltd.53 pp