Living Together: Rocky Intertidal Zone, The: Challenges and Adaptations
The intertidal zone contains a rich abundance of diverse organisms, despite a multitude of challenges, from pounding waves and temperature fluctuation to competition for scarce resources. Nonetheless, many organisms manage to not only survive but to...
Living Together: Marine Communities: Change and Bio-Diversity
For communities in the marine environment, change is an ongoing reality. Bio-diversity, which refers to the number of species and relative abundance of different species within a community, offers the best chance for community survival.
Survivors: Intertidal Zonation
An organism's preference for the habitat to which it is adapted creates a mosaic of similarly adapted organisms clumped in recognizable bands along the shore. This is a phenomenon known as intertidal zonation.
Beneath the Surface: Light in the Ocean
One of the defining elements that distinguishes one ocean layer from another is the presence or absence of light. The impact of light in the marine environment is significant. It affects the behavior of marine animals and has an impact on their anat...
Food for Thought: Transfer of Energy, The
While the term "food chain" is still used by some to describe the transfer of energy between organisms, others contend that the complex nature of this process is better described by the word "web," rather than "chain."
Dirty Water: Toxic Metallic Compounds
Along with oil and excess nutrients, toxic metallic compounds can also make their way to the marine environment and cause damage that may be passed along through the food web.
Survivors: Survival in the Intertidal Zone
Perhaps nowhere on Earth is the ability to survive better demonstrated than that part of the shore alternately exposed and submerged by tides-a region known as the intertidal zone. Remarkably, marine organisms there have evolved a multitude of ways ...