BACTERIAL DIVERSITY ANALYSIS IN HINDGUT OF LAND HERMIT CRABS Coenobita spp
ELISABET IDA WULANDARI
Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
IRSAN WIBOWO HALIM
Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
ADI YULANDI
Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
YASINTA RATNA ESTI WULANDARI
Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
RORY ANTHONY HUTAGALUNG *
Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Land hermit crabs (Coenobita spp.) are unique terrestrial decapods which are widely domesticated and traded as exotic pet. As a detritivore which diets mostly have low nutritional availability and hard to digest, its gut bacteria might majorly affect the nutrition digestion which further affecting the animals’ health. However there has been a little to no study conducted on land hermit crabs gut bacteria. This research is a preliminary study aims to analyze the bacterial diversity in Coenobita rugosus and C. perlatus, two most favoured land hermit crab species from Indonesia, using terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) method. Alpha proteobacteria and Gamma proteobacteria were identified in both species hindguts along with unclassified bacteria, uncultured bacteria, and uncultured organism. The class of Bacteroidia was only identified in C. perlatus while Cytophagia was only identified in C. rugosus. The bacterial community in C. perlatus had higher number of organisms and was more diverse than that of C. rugosus. However the bacterial communities identified in both species showed no dominancy as shown by their diversity index analysis using Simpson’s Index (D), Shanon Index (H), and Evenness Index (E).
Keywords: C. perlatus, C. rugosus, gut bacteria, terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism