Malacological Survey of Shellfishes in the Coastal Areas Capiz, Philippines

Abstract

The marine and aquatic ecosystems contain the largest volume of life globally, covering 70.8% of the Earth’s. They harbor the largest existing species of the planet composed of 232,500,000 known species surface (Bijukumar, 2008). This study was conducted to determine the species diversity of shellfishes found in the different coastal areas of Capiz, Philippines using a survey method of research. Raw data gathered were analyzed using PAST software. The result of the study revealed that there are 27 species belonging to 17 families of shellfishes found across the seven municipalities of Capiz. Software analysis revealed that over-all, there is a high diversity of shellfishes in the sampling sites as indicated by the Shanon’s H (prime) value =3.143. The data generated in this study can serve as a baseline for future research and for policymaking in the locality considering its ecology and benefits in the ecosystem.