Video
View the video clip of the site and the survey. A film transcript is also provided below.
The site and survey for 'On the Rocks'
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Film Transcript
The sea shore offers opportunities and challenges - it is exposed to the air and submerged by the sea twice daily. Despite this, or because of it, the intertidal zone can be immensely diverse in terms of species and numbers. In this exercise we will be examining the zonation that occurs on the rocky shore where organisms are restricted by the conditions in which they are living. Our study site is on the Kent coast in southern England. Here the underlying geology is chalk and this is exposed in the form of a series of cliffs and bays.
We will follow the tide out from the high water level at the base of the sea wall - through the mid shore down to the low water mark. The beach shelves gently, occasionally interrupted by outcrops of chalk which form the numerous rock pools.
Our survey takes the form of a 100m continuous transect at right angles to the coast.
We used a one square metre quadrat to record the distribution of intertidal organisms living on the rocks... in this case three species of periwinkle - a marine snail seen here on the sea wall in the splash zone of the shore. Mussels and barnacles were also recorded.
Sampling takes the form of visual assessment of percentage cover of these species. Additionally, the presence of rock pools and the temperature of the water is also noted. Here we see surveying in action in the mid-shore part of the transect.
The transect ends at a 100m. We are now on the lower shore which is is less exposed and spends more time inundated by sea water. You will be using the distribution of the marine organisms to identify the three zones of the shore (upper, mid- and lower). You will also be asked to speculate on how this zonation occurs and suggest ways of testing your ideas experimentally.
