Soft-Benthic Macrofauna Case Study

Erosion of Shorelines The erosion of shorelines is a natural process that can have beneficial or adverse impacts on the creation and maintenance of habitats. Sands and gravels eroded from the shores of coastal bays maintain the beach as a natural barrier between the open water and coastal wetlands. Beaches move back and forth onshore, offshore and along shore with changing wave conditions. The finer-grained silts and clays derived from the erosion of shorelines are sorted and carried as far as the waters of wetlands or tidal flats, where benefits are derived from addition of the new material. However, excessively high sediment loads can smother submerged aquatic vegetation beds, cover shellfish beds and tidal flats, fill in riffle

The Supra-littoral zone is one of the harshest terrains for organisms to exist in. The organisms that live in this region are facing problems like gas exchange, desiccation, temperature changes and feeding. It is only covered during storms and extremely high tides and is moistened by the spray of the breaking waves. Organisms are exposed to the drying heat of the sun in the summer and to extreme low temperatures in the winter. Because of these severe conditions, only a few resistant organisms live here. The dominate organisms that reside within this zone are Blue grey Periwinkles. Using Transect lines for over 30m, we evaluated the effects of several factors on this zone, including (1) predation, (2) herbivory, (3) plant—plant competition, (4) plant—animal competition, and (5) physical disturbance from high—energy waves. The interaction having the greatest effect on the structure of this zone was desiccation and high temperatures. However the Blue grey Periwinkle has been specially adapted to the harsh conditions of the dry upper littoral zone. They are able to trap water inside their shell to prevent moisture escaping, and cling to the rock face while the tide is out. As we can see from the abiotic data the temperature at the Supra littoral zone is also very high reaching 25 degrees compared to the other zones reaching only 20 degrees. Furthermore the special adaptations of the Blue Grey Periwinkle allow it to be the most dominant

The characteristics of a sandy shore at Pallarenda beach, Townsville, North Queensland. Introduction: The sandy shores of beaches can be considered as a very harsh environment to live in (Ted Klenk, 1999). Survival in such a habitat requires an organism to withstand strong wave and current action, tidal rise and fall, unstable substrate, heavy predation and wide variations in salinity and temperature (The Otter Island Project). Any organism found in this type of harsh environment is specialized and highly adapted (The Otter Island Project).

FINAL PROJECT Introduction Along the coasts of rocky beaches, an intricate ecological community inhabits the ‘rocky intertidal’ areas. The variety of rocks is home to an array of slimy, squishy, and colorful organisms. This intertidal community is comprised of nine species: three different algae, three stationary filter-feeders, and three mobile consumers. The three algae, Nori Seaweed, Black Pine, and Coral Weed, are the community’s producers and inhabit the bottom of the food chain. The next three species are stationary consumers. They are Mussel, Goose Neck Barnacle, and Acorn Barnacle. Because of their consumer status, they are more competitively dominant than algae. The last three components are the mobile consumers: Whelk, Chiton, and Starfish. They

Furthermore, extraction of building materials such as sand affects coral reefs, mangroves, and hinterland forests, leading to erosion and destruction of habitats. Overbuilding and extensive paving of shorelines can result in destruction of habitats and disruption of land-sea connections such as sea-turtle nesting spots. Coral reefs are especially fragile marine ecosystems and are suffering worldwide from reef-based tourism developments. Evidence suggests a variety of impacts to coastline ecosystems result from shoreline development, increased sediments in the water, trampling by tourists and divers, ship groundings, pollution from sewage, overfishing, and fishing with poisons and explosives that destroy coral

The variations of tidal levels have created different degrees of sun and air exposure that have resulted in three zones, generally, the supra-littoral zone, littoral zone and the sub-littoral zone (See Appendix A, Figure 3). Diverse animal and plant organisms excel at surviving and dealing with different degrees of abiotic and biotic factors and as a result the rocky shore ecosystem is comprised of a series of bands known as vertical, or in this instance, intertidal zonation (See Appendix A, Figure 1). Abiotic stresses such as light intensity and wave action typically set the upper boundaries where as biotic stresses set the lower boundaries and limit the distribution of many organisms to particular strata (See Appendix A, Figure 2). It is due to the species distribution among the different zones that the rocky shore ecosystems cannot be defined as a uniform habitat, rather a dynamic and complex one (Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, 2013).

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most important and biologically diverse ecosystems in the world (Reef Relief, 2014). It is intricately laced with the mangrove and seagrass ecosystems. The Great Barrier reef is home and feeding ground to thousands of marine species, such as hard and soft corals, sponges, crustaceans, molluscs, fish, turtles, sharks, dolphins and many more (Reef Relief, 2014). Coral reefs take up only 2% of the

Fraser Coast consists of four main ecosystems which are rocky shores, sand dunes, rainforests and mangroves. All of these ecosystems are important to the survival of several plants and animals. Each plant and animal work together to keep the ecosystem alive and healthy. Rocky Shores are found where the sea

Fort DeSoto Park is a protected marine environment that is next to Eckerd College, an unprotected marine environment in Boca Ciega Bay. Palaemonetes vulgaris (common name grass shrimp) is an invertebrate that is native to both areas. The comparison that is to be made is the average total length of Palaemonetes vulgaris between these two environments. The alternate hypothesis is because of human interaction occurring in the waters of unprotected areas, the Palaemonetes vulgaris will have a shorter average total length there. The null hypothesis is there is no difference in the size of Palaemonetes vulgaris growing in the protected vs. unprotected areas, because predators will eat all the shrimp in both areas causing them to have the same

2.2 Benthic structure Sand, rubble, and macroalgae dominate benthic cover at sites A and B at Black Point. Seasonal blooms of green macroalgae, Bryopsis pennata, which persisted in the water column and benthos at all sites, were occurring during our Black Point sampling event. Coral cover is highest along the outer perimeter of the reef flat (i.e., site C). Benthic cover at Wailupe is dominated by macroalgae with percent cover ranging from 30 - 50% on average (Amato, 2015). Sand and rubble constitute nearly 20 - 50% of the benthos at all sites. Corals are found predominantly offshore with cover estimated as 2 - 5% at site C while zoanthid cover peaks in the nearshore sites at 2 - 12% (Amato, 2015).

Case Study Brazil gains the most of their ocean fishier-yields from the southernmost subtropical shelf. The shelf has seasonal currents of nutrient filled ocean water and yields more fish than other areas due the other surrounding waters being lower in nutrients. In 2009, Brazil produced less than one percent of the

Berenice Yang Gonzalez Intertidal Lab Abstract The intertidal zone is characterized as the limited segment of domain which is found at the air-land-ocean interface and lies between the tidemarks on all shorelines. From the about dry high tide line down to the quite often wet low tide line, the intertidal zone exists on rough shores, sandy shorelines, and mud pads. The Intertidal Zone is a harsh environment. The class sample the intertidal zone by placing quadrats in a standardized form and recorded all species who were in the quadrat. The Shannon Index and Evenness were calculated in 4 transects in the mid zone. The Simpson’s Index and Richness were calculated in all three sections separately and all values were compare to understand the dynamic of this community. Two species were compare from the sample population to understand the relation of the zones and niches. The sample was too small and many error were made for the sample to have a relevant result.

There are many different creatures in the ocean. They are categorized into 3 different groups that are Zooplankton, Nekton, and Benthos. In the ocean the zooplankton eat phytoplanktons. Zooplankton are eaten by all of the larger animals. Phytoplankton self reproduce so they don’t need to eat other things. They create their own food. The Nekton eat the zooplankton because it is a smaller species than the rest.

Despite there are more studies confirm cascading effect in coral reefs such as indirect effect on mesopredator and herbivore density( (Friedlandler and DeMartini 2002; Ruppert et al. 2013; Ritchie and Johnson 2009), algal cover sponge cover (Rasher et al 2013; Loh et al. 2015) resulting decline in coral cover and juvenile coral (Rasher et al 2013; Casey et al 2015). However, most of those research were conducted in region where confounding factors persists such as fishing pressure across many trophic levels (predator, herbivore, planktivore), pollution, and terrestrial run-off. Eventhough some research were conducted in the nearly pristine area, such as Dulvy (2004) in Lau Island Fiji with human population densities ranging between two and 42 people km-2. However, this area may not be pristine in a historical context and non exclusive predator fishing still occurs. Hence, recent unambiguous empirical evidence of trophical cascade in coral reef ecosystem with the absent of confounding factors was scarce (Ferretti et al 2010).

Biology 2.6 Achievement Standard 91158 Cellana Denticulata, Chamaesipho Columna and Chamaesipho Brunnea are three species living in the intertidal zone of the rocky shore. I am investigating the distribution pattern of these three species and the factors affecting the zonation pattern of these organisms. The aim of the investigation was to analyse and compare the distribution of the separate species, regarding the adaptations and the intraspecific and interspecific interactions- whether being competitive, cooperative or exploitative. The investigation took place at Sirens Rocks. (see photo right) The distribution of these species are affected by abiotic and biotic factors of which limit the upper vertical and lower vertical limit that the three organisms can endure, thus providing a fundamental niche where the organisms inhabit. The ecological pattern presented at the location of Sirens Rocks is Zonation, which is a community pattern, showing visual bands or zones of which is created by the varying tolerance to different abiotic factors and biotic factors.