Abstract. Lipi JA, Noman MDA, Hossain MB, Abu Hena MK, Idris MH. 2020. Effects of ship-breaking activities on the abundance and diversity of macrobenthos in Sitakundu Coast, Bangladesh. Biodiversitas 21: 5085-5093. To articulate the ecological processes or anthropogenic impacts, it is necessary to explore various distributional patterns of benthic communities. The study was conducted to investigate the variability of macrobenthos between a ship braking and non-ship-breaking area along the Sitakunda coast, Chittagong, Bangladesh. This is the first comprehensive study that addresses the effects of ship-breaking activities on the variability of benthic communities in the study area. Macrobenthos were sampled from two different regions namely Bhatiary (ship-breaking area) and Banshbaria (non-ship-breaking area/reference area) in two different time periods (April and July) for comparative analyses. During the study period, Polychaeta was the most dominant group comprising 60% of the total macrobenthos all over the study area. Macrobenthos abundance and diversity demonstrated strong spatial variability. The mean abundance varied from 3799.75±3452.28 ind./m2 to 4107.25±2743.6 ind./m2 from the ship-breaking to non-ship-breaking area. Similar to macrobenthos abundance, the diversity index (H′) (varied between 2.45 and 1.85), species richness (D) (varied between 1.99 and 1.04), and the number of taxa (varied between 17.25 and 9.25) were higher in the non-ship-breaking area compared to the ship-breaking area. Multivariate analyses, nMDS, and CCA plot showed a distinct grouping for different location. Besides, the diversity indices of the Polychaeta community, and the presence or absence of several pollution indicator taxa revealed that Bhatiary (the ship-breaking area) was confronting deleterious effects of ship-breaking activities.

Microbiological quality assessment is a crucial part of sea food processing industries. The food processing companies must safeguard the quality and safety of their products for the consumers. The study was carried out to assess the microbial load (total bacterial load-total coliforms, fecal coliforms, Salmonella spp, and Vibrio cholera) of ready-to-eat exportable Horina shrimp (Metapenaeus Monoceros) products processed in a sea food processing industry of Bangladesh. For the microbial analyses, samples were collected from cooked IQF (Individual Quick Freezer) shrimp and BF (Block Frozen) shrimp. Microbial analysis was conducted using the standard protocol for counting and identifying microorganisms. Total bacterial load in cooked four samples of Horina shrimp (Br. CPBF, Br. Cooked & peeled BF, Hr. PUD cooked IQF, Br. CP&D BF) were 0.059×10 5 cfu/g, 0,054×10 5 cfu/g, 0.069×10 5 cfu/g, 0.059×10 5 cfu/g, respectively. Total coliform and fecal coliform of cooked shrimps was < 3 MPN/g. Escherichia coli, Salmonella and V. Cholera were totally absent in cooked shrimp products. The data demonstrated that all the values were under the limit of ICMSF recommended microbiological standard might be because of maintaining possible critical control (CCPs) and critical control point (HACCP) system. The result of the present study implies that the Horina shrimp ready-to-eat product in sea food industry from Bangladesh was of excellent quality for export, and posed no risk to human health.