Influence of organic deposit on Rhizophora spp. growth and sediment chemical properties in Tanjung Piai mangrove forest, Johor / Nur Hafiza Abd Halim

Nur Hafiza , Abd Halim (2022) Influence of organic deposit on Rhizophora spp. growth and sediment chemical properties in Tanjung Piai mangrove forest, Johor / Nur Hafiza Abd Halim. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

Mangrove ecosystems are critical for maintaining ecological processes and acting as natural barriers against erosive wave action, tsunami, and strong coastal winds. However, mangrove forests are currently in jeopardy as a result of urbanization, aquaculture expansion, and increased pollution loads. Marine debris containing organic deposits are intentionally or unintentionally dumped into the marine environment, which was reported to have the potential to alter the mangrove’s natural environment. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the influence of organic deposit on growth of Rhizophora spp. and sediment chemical properties in Tanjung Piai mangrove forest, Johor. The first objective of this study is to characterize the chemical of organic deposits at three different locations. Samples of organic deposit were collected at Pulau Ketam in Perlis, Pantai Kelanang in Selangor and Tanjung Piai, Johor. The analysis of the organic deposit samples from these three different locations showed that organic deposit at Tanjung Piai contains the highest concentration of heavy metals, especially Cu, Pb and Zn with 21.50 mg kg-1, 82.41 mg kg-1, 133.12 mg kg-1 respectively. Concentrations of Cd, Cu and Pb at Tanjung Piai exceed the limits set for biocompost of European countries and the United States. From this assessment, the influence of organic deposit on growth of Rhizophora spp. and sediment chemical properties in Tanjung Piai mangrove forest, Johor was carried out by measuring the growth performance, soil fertility and the fractionation of heavy metals between different localities having fresh, decomposed and without organic deposit material as the second and third objectives of this study. Four different sampling sites have been establish based on the presence of organic deposits at each plot; T1: site without organic deposit material, T2: site with new organic deposit material, T3: site with decomposed organic deposit material, T4: site with decomposed organic material. Generally, sites with decomposed organic deposit resulted in the highest growth increment of Rhizophora spp. compared with sites without organic deposit with total mean increment of 19 cm after one year of study. The highest nitrogen, organic carbon, CEC, Cu and Pb were also recorded at sites with decomposed organic deposit. pH at decomposed organic deposit (T3 and T4) was slightly acidic with the lowest pH recorded 4.78. Modified sequential extraction BCR method was adopted for the fractionation of heavy metals. Results showed Fe and Mn are highly mobile and available for the plant intake. The concentration of Fe and Mn in Rhizophora spp. leaves was high compared to the concentration of Cd, Pb and Zn. The correlation between the Rhizophora spp. growth with physio-chemical properties shows positive correlation with N, C, CEC, Exch Mg, and Exch K. For the correlation between heavy metals with sediment fertility, Zn and Mn were only positively correlated with pH. While other heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu and Fe) were positively correlate with total nitrogen and organic carbon in the sediment. Overall, this study implies that upon decomposition and degradation of organic deposit, it increases some of the nutrients and also heavy metals in the sediment at Tanjung Piai mangrove forest.

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