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Biofouling is a process which aquatic micro and macro organisms accrete
into a surface when expose to marine environment for a longer period. The
development of biofouling communities follows a pattern of colonization
and succession. The developing community affected by certain biotic and
abiotic factors. The texture, surface topography and orientation of the hard
surface, are major abiotic factors that mostly determine the composition of
the settling community. Although, there are several studies looking at effects
of surface topography and texture on biofouling community development,
very little is known on the effect of plate orientation. Therefore, present
study was to investigate the effect of surface orientation of the settlement
plates on fouling. The study was conducted in six sampling locations within
Colombo port. Sampling was conducted using artificial settlement plates.
Settlement collectors were submerged in four different depths where first set
was 1 m below the water surface and others setting at 1 m intervals. Monthly
samples were collected from October 2014 to March 2017. Specimens were
identified morphologically using fine morphological features and samples
were quantitatively assessed by determining their covering percentage and
species abundance. One-Way ANOVA test results showed that there was a
significant difference (0.05 > p) between settlement plate orientation (i.e.
vertical and horizontal), species richness and species coverage. Further, total
richness data revealed that vertical surfaces occupy more species compared
to horizontal surface. Results indicate that spatial orientation of surfaces play
a major role influencing the settlement to structures. There may be other
confounding physical and biological factors for settlement selection which
need to be revealed.
