Term
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Definition
| The area between the highest and lowest tides (littoral zone) |
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| Stressful environment where organisms react by hiding, clamming up, running away, or coping. Also must deal with heat and wave action. |
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Definition
| strong fibers secreted by mussels for attachment |
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Term
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Definition
| Upper Intertidal: black zone with lichens and encrusting algae, Middle Intertidal: with barnacles & rockweed & muscles, Lower Intertidal: with Irish moss, and Extreme Lower Intertidal: with seaweeds. |
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Definition
| when a resource is in short supply and one organism uses it at the expense of another |
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Definition
| animals eating organisms lower on the food chain |
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Definition
| predatory species whose effects on it’s community are proportionately greater than its abundance |
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Term
| What adaptive strategies do these organisms employ to deal with these stresses? |
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Definition
-also called environmental stresses:
1. water loss (organisms respond by hiding, clamming up, living with it, or running away) desiccation
2. heat (hide, run away, lighten up)
3. wave action (hide, run away, live with it by hanging on, being flexible, or being short) |
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Term
| Know some examples of organisms inhabiting the rocky intertidal. Are there more species in the upper or lower zones of this environment? Why? |
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Definition
-snails, mussels, barnacles, spiral wrack, limpets, chitons, starfish
-there are more species in the lower zones because that is where there is less environmental stress |
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Term
| What causes vertical zonation in the rocky intertidal? Understand the role of biotic factors (competition, predation) and abiotic (= physical, environmental) factors in determining the vertical distribution of organisms in this environment. What sorts of factors tend to set the upper and the lower elevation limit for a given organism? |
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Definition
-factors that influence vertical zonation
-Factors that influence vertical zonation is the tide level since that is one of the factors that causes the bands. Species that need water are in the low zone like algae. Species that need moderate water are mussels so they are in the mid-zone. Species that don't need much water because they are resistant to desiccation (drying up) are barnacles. Of course, in the course of the day all the organisms will be submerged in water when the tide level rises. Those are the abiotic factors that influence vertical zonation.
Biological factors are other species like predators and competition between species. For example, sea stars consume mussels therefore mussels are located in the midzone for protection because the midzone does not always submerged in water throughout the day. So the sea stars are limited by the low tide because that is the highest they can go when the tide is that low so they cannot consume the mussels.
-upper limit: physical stresses (desiccation, etc.)
-lower limit: biological stresses (competition, predation) |
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Term
| Understand (in a general way) the example of the different vertical distributions of Rock Barnacles vs. Little Gray Barnacles. (You don’t need to memorize which is which – just know the contrasting characteristics of the two species, and how those characteristics affect their distribution in the rocky intertidal.) |
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Definition
-rock barnacles
-fast growing
-not desiccation resistant
-little gray barnacles
-slow growing
-resistant to desiccation |
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