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The Ballantine scale is a biologically defined scale for measuring the degree of exposure level of wave action on a rocky shore. Devised in 1961 by W. J. Ballantine, then at the zoology department of Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K., the scale is based on the observation that where shoreline species are concerned "Different species growing on rocky shores require different degrees ...
The intertidal region is an important model system for the study of ecology, especially on wave-swept rocky shores. The region contains a high diversity of species, and the zonation created by the tides causes species ranges to be compressed into very narrow bands.
Rocky shores tend to have higher wave action, requiring adaptations allowing the inhabitants to cling tightly to the rocks. Soft-bottom habitats are generally protected from large waves but tend to have more variable salinity levels. They also offer a third habitable dimension: depth. Thus, many soft-sediment inhabitants are adapted for burrowing.
Headlands are characterised by high, breaking waves, rocky shores, intense erosion, and steep sea cliff. Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is flanked by land on three sides, whereas a headland is flanked by water on three sides.
[3] [4] Rocky shores are usually found along exposed coasts and provide habitat for a wide range of sessile animals (e.g. mussels, starfish, barnacles) and various kinds of seaweeds. In physical oceanography , a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, while the beach is at the ...
As a result, coastal marine life is the most abundant in the world. It is found in tidal pools, fjords and estuaries, near sandy shores and rocky coastlines, around coral reefs and on or above the continental shelf. Coastal fish include small forage fish as well as the larger predator fish that feed on them.
Collapsed Ordovician limestone bank showing coastal erosion.NW Osmussaar, Estonia.. Coastal geography is the study of the constantly changing region between the ocean and the land, incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, climatology and oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast.
The substrate, or base material, is important in that it provides a base to which an organism can anchor itself, which is vitally important for those organisms which need to stay in one particular kind of place. Rocky shores and reefs provide a firm fixed substrate for the attachment of plants and animals.