FNR 45400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Intertidal Ecology, Capillary Action, Meiobenthos
14 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
Shoreline- the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. For over 60 years, shorelines have been defined by intertidal ecology. However, this means of classifying shores based on tides is erroneous due to multiple factors. This classification assumes that the physical factors are what drives the distribution of organisms in shore ecosystems. While tides do amplify physical changes in the wet/dry interface (fig. 1), it is the biological adaptations displayed by shore organisms that drives their distribution and abundance. In addition, not all shorelines have tidal influence, making classification by tides impossible in these areas. A broader perspective than just tides needs to be considered as many species depend on shorelines, but are farther away from the shore, such as larval species. The wet-dry gradient (a) that characterizes the shore is set up by the interface between water.
