Paper Title
Diversity Assessment on Malaysian Benthic Macroalgae in Tioman Island and Tulai Candang Island, Pahang

Abstract
Pulau Tioman is one of the popular tourism island in Malaysia and was gazetted as Marine Park in 1995 to protect the valuable marine resources. Nowadays, species compositions of seaweed are decreasing gradually due to the major environmental disturbance. Thus, due to the concerning on the availability of the seaweeds, the assessment was employed from October 2011 until April 2016 in order to observe the changes in terms of density and richness of the marine algae. The methodology were specimen collection, preservation of the sample, preparation of digital images, specimen identification and herbarium specimen preparation. The herbarium specimens were deposited to Algae Herbarium, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The outcomes of the study have recorded 76 taxa out of 1176 collected specimens. The recorded taxa were from division of Chlorophyta, Rhodophyta, Phaeophyta and Cyanophyta. Chlorophyta is reported having the highest number of taxa for every assessment, followed by Rhodophyta, Phaeophyta and the least number of taxa is Cyanophyta. Over six years assessment, started from 2011, the species density were gradually change, then it was reduced suddenly in 2013. The reduction in species density were twofold, later the species density getting lower and constant until now. There were several species noticed as new record in Pulau Tioman and Pulau Tulai which are Acetabularia clavata, Anadyomene plicata, Caulerpa cupressoides, Chaetomorpha ligustica, Dictyosphaeria versluysii, Gelidiella trinitatensis and Padina pavonica. The work has successfully observed the changes in terms of density of the seaweed species throughout six years assessment. Index Terms- Benthic algae, diversity, seaweeds, Pulau Tioman, Pulau Tulai Candang.