The diversity and abundance of meiofauna at intertidal zone of Tanjung Aru and Lok Kawi / Rojita Lasion

Meiofaunal organisms are small animals that can pass through 1 mm mesh size sieve and retained on mesh sizes sieve from 1000 pm to 42 pm and lives in a wide variety of habitats. The study of diversity and and abundance the meiofauna was compared between two tidal zone of Tanjung Aru and Lok Kawi respectively. About five transect lines were done from the lowest tide level, middle tide level and to the high tides level. Some of parameters were influence the abundance of meiofaunal and the major controlling factor is the sediment characteristic. Eight taxa of meiofaunal founded at Tanjung Aru beach and Lok Kawi beach which are about 1,309 and 1,156 individual respectively were dominated by Nematode and Copepode. The Harpacticoid. Oligocheata, Turbellaria, Ostracoda, and Polycheata were also present but in lower abundance. The Gastrotricha and Nemertea were found but much less abundance. Tanjung Aru first beach has the highest diversity index with 1.026 and Lok Kawi has low diversity index with 0.934.