Studying shores

Abstract

Shores are easy to study compared with the systems they divide: the land and the open sea. They have sharp environmental gradients and a suite of usually well-described and easily identifiable species. Although plant life is restricted to algae and a few higher plants, examples of most of the major animal groups can be found on the shore. There are good identification guides or keys to most groups. Access to the shore is usually easy and, in many parts of the world, shores are publicly owned or common property. Because of these features they provide an ideal outdoor laboratory for learning about systematics and taxonomy, ecophysiology, population and community ecology. It is not surprising that many educational courses include shore ecology within the curriculum. Also, because shores are more accessible and easier to investigate than offshore marine systems, they are often the focus of biological monitoring programmes aimed at detecting the potential effects of changes in coastal activities and contamination. In this chapter we consider some of the general principles underlying the study of shore communities.