The small honeycomb barnacle Chamaesipho tasmanica Foster and Anderson often forms continuous sheets covering the substratum at mid-shore levels of sheltered rocky shores but also occurs in sparse distributions on exposed shores, and on higher levels of sheltered shores, in south-eastern Australia. Larger barnacles are generally found in more exposed and higher areas. Effects of each site on ul...

Photosynthetic microbial biofilms are an important functional component of rocky intertidal habitats worldwide. The abundance of organisms within these films varies both seasonally and according to vertical emersion gradients. However, the effects of horizontal gradients of wave exposure, which have a key influence on macrobiotic assemblages, have received little attention. Here, we examine the...

The potential generality of local processes in determining spatial patterns of molluscan assemblages in turfs of Corallina officinalis is evaluated by testing hypotheses about consistency in ecological pattern on shores in Australia, Ireland and Chile. Identical sampling protocols on 2 shores in each country were used to test 2 specific hypotheses: (1) that molluscan assemblages vary significan...

In the early 1980s, a biologist at the tropical aquarium in Stuttgart, Germany, noticed that the beautiful green alga Caulerpa taxifolia (Fig. 1) would make an ideal aquarium decoration. It does not wither, it is fast growing and it withstands cool temperatures. In the following years, many aquariums acquired Caulerpa plants from Stuttgart, among them the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, from wh...

The influence of physical factors on the trophic structure of rocky intertidal communities in the Cape of Good Hope was investigated by examining species composition and biomass on shores subject to different conditions of substratum, sea temperature and wave exposure. Biomass of herbivores on shores with an unstable substratum was particularly high while the sessile filter-feeders and algae we...