Abstract
On hard intertidal substrates the marked local variations in slope, texture, aspect and drainage of the rock surface emphasize the physical heterogeneity of the environment, and this is reflected in the obviously uneven distribution of many important species in the community. In marked contrast, depositing substrates usually appear homogeneous from the surface, and there is a natural tendency to assume that this is accompanied by an even distribution of the burrowing fauna. The practical implication of this would be that depositing shores could be effectively investigated with the use of much smaller sample areas than rocky ones. However, this may not be true. The surface uniformity may in fact mask sub-surface variations in the physical environment, and the presence of one species may modify the distribution of others (Reise, 1981a, 1981b). Such physical and biological factors will tend to generate patchy distributions, and reduce the effectiveness of a given sampling format.
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© 1983 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hartnoll, R.G. (1983). The Species-Area Relationship on a Sandy Beach. In: McLachlan, A., Erasmus, T. (eds) Sandy Beaches as Ecosystems. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2938-3_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2938-3_35
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8521-4
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