The intertidal zone has historically functioned as an important natural laboratory for testing ideas about how physical factors such as temperature influence organismal physiology and in turn influence the distribution patterns of organisms. Key to our understanding of how the physical environment helps structure organismal distribution is the identification of physiological processes that have...

Burnett, L. E. . The challenges of living in hypoxic and hypercapnic aquatic environments. American Zoologist : –. De Mora, S. J., S. Demers, and M. Vernet. . The effects of UV radiation in the marine environment. London: Cambridge University Press. Denny, M. W. . Life in the maelstrom: the biomechanics of waveswept rocky shores. Trends in Ecology and Evolution : –. Kan...

Predator depletion on Cape Cod (USA) has released the herbivorous crab Sesarmareticulatum from predator control leading to the loss of cordgrass from salt marsh creek banks. After more than three decades of die-off, cordgrass is recovering at heavily damaged sites coincident with the invasion of green crabs (Carcinusmaenas) into intertidal Sesarma burrows. We hypothesized that Carcinus is depen...

Species of the genus Mastocarpus exhibit two distinct life cycles, a sexual alternation of generations and an obligate, asexual direct life cycle that produces only female upright fronds. In the intertidal red alga, M. papillatus (Kützing) sexual fronds dominate southern populations and asexual fronds dominate northern populations along the northeast Pacific coast, a pattern of spatial separati...

19.4 Examples of Cyanobacterial Habitats with High Exposure ....................................................... 485 19.4.1 Hot Springs ..................................................................... 485 19.4.2 Intertidal Marine and Hypersaline Habitats .................... 486 19.4.3 Benthic Freshwater Habitats ........................................... 487 19.4.4 Marine and Freshwat...

Alterations in the order, or fluidity, of cellular membranes in response to variations in environmental temperature are well known. The mussel Mytilus californianus, a common inhabitant of mid-intertidal regions along the Pacific coast of North America, can experience large (20 °C or more) and cyclic (every 6 h) changes in body temperature (Tb ) during tidal cycles. In the present study, we...

Animals and plants in the marine intertidal zone live at the interface between terrestrial and marine environments. This zone is likely to be a sensitive indicator of the effects of climate change in coastal ecosystems, because of several key characteristics including steep environmental gradients, rapid temperature changes during tide transitions, fierce competition for limited space, and a co...

In many European estuaries, extensive areas of intertidal habitats consist of bare mudflats and sandflats that harbour a very high abundance and biomass of macrobenthic invertebrates. The high stocks of macrobenthos in turn provide important food sources for the higher trophic levels such as fish and shorebirds. Climate change and associated sea-level rise will have potential to cause changes i...

At Mace Head, Eire, in the coastal East Atlantic, diiodomethane has been identified as an important precursor of iodine oxide radicals. Peak concentrations of both CH2I2 and IO at low water indicate that the intertidal region is a strong source of organo-iodines. Atmospheric measurements of CH2I2 made in marine air are compared with the concentrations predicted by a 2-dimensional model incorpor...

The role of habitat complexity has been widely neglected in the study of meiofaunal community patterns. We studied the intertidal nematode community of a structurally complex macrotidal beach exhibiting contrasting microhabitats (sandbars and runnels) to understand the influence of environmental gradients and habitat heterogeneity in the community structure. We tested whether topographical comp...