Biodiversity and population of ghost crabs at selected sandy beaches of Kuching division, Sarawak

Norhakimi, bin Muhamad (2011) Biodiversity and population of ghost crabs at selected sandy beaches of Kuching division, Sarawak. [Final Year Project Report] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Ghost crabs under the genus Ocypode are one of the sandy beach communities. The genus consists of 26 species worldwide. The adults usually occupy terrestrial area while their juveniles can be seen on the beach until the edge of the water. They are nocturnal animals and practise scavenging, predating and detritus feeding behaviour. Generally they have unequal size of chelipeds and differ between each individual which are either their right or left chela is bigger. Three sites were chosen as study sites which are Satang Island (26 -27 July 2010), Sematan beach (7 -8 August 2010) and Teluk Pandan beach (30 January -2 February 2011). The ghost crabs that inhabit those three beaches are 0. ceratophthalmus and Satang Island is the only area to have another species which is 0. cordimanus. Their handedness ratio is almost equal within the same sex nearly 1:1 and the male population is higher compared to female about 7:3. Their populations are estimated to be huge in each beaches based on the capture-mark-recapture method. Burrow counting method showed that supralittoral area has higher density of ghost crab while capture-mark-recapture method shows that ghost crabs density is higher at foreshore area.

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