Coral Recruitment and Benthic Organism Studies on Artificial Biorock, Pramuka Island-DKI Jakarta

Abstract

Coral recruitment is a process where juvenile coral, generated through reproduction, attached to substrates and grow to become part of coral populations. Mineral accretion defined as a process of formation of solid minerals and is one method for forming artificial reefs by using the principle of calcification, this method is known as biorock. Biorock expected to be a substrate for coral larvae settlement, so it can be used as one of the innovations of rehabilitation of coral reefs that were damaged. Observation of coral and other benthic organism recruitment were carried out once in a month during April to October 2010. In general algal and ascidians dominated unit with biorock treatment at the first month of observation. At the end of observation, we found ten coral genera from six families at biorock. We observed an increase of coral genera as much as three fold during T0-T6; Pavona, Millepora and Stylophora. However coral species increment did not occur in non-biorock treatment, there were only six genera and three families observed through out the study period. The highest coral recruitment density was found at biorock treatment (45 colonies/unit) compare to non biorock (33 colony/unit).