Inventorization of reef fish on Tabuhan Island, Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Tabuhan Island is one of the underwater tourist destinations in Banyuwangi, East Java Indonesia, with beautiful coral reefs and reef fish. The increase of tourism activities has an impact on the decline of the coral reef ecosystems. This condition will affect the abundance of reef fish. This study aimed to determine the abundance of reef fish in the conservation of Tabuhan Island. The study was conducted in November 2017. The determination of the location used purposive sampling through the Intercept Line Transect (ILT) method, while the observation of the reef fish was conducted using a visual census. The total of the individual reef fish that had been found was gathered from three observation stations, totaling 1,037 individuals, consisting of 21 species from 6 families. Family Apogonidae dominated as many as 49%, Pomacentridae 42%, Labridae 4%, Mulidae and Balistidae 2% and Lutjanidae 1%. Shannon’s diversity index (H') was 2.32, the Equitability index (E') was 0.34 and the dominance index (C') was 0.14. The level of diversity of the reef fish in the waters of Tabuhan Island was moderate with low uniformity and dominance categories.