The middle intertidal zone

By Robin Johansson, Jenni

Olausson, Jennifer Palmeborn
and Sofia Roslund

Materials & Methods

Camera
Water objective
Microscope
Magnifing glas
Bucket

Looked at the beach, and

did a short analyze.
Turned rocks and algeas
to find organisms
A few samples were put
in a bucket and analyzed
in a microscope back at
the ship
Checked what kind of
species that was found
Made notes about the
mesolitteral zone in
general

The middle intetidal zone

Between the highest and the lowest tide
More exposed to abiotic factors
The organisms have to adapt their lifestyles
because of the regular tides
Plants need to be able to protect themselves
from drying out
Most of the organisms use shells for
protection against the winterwater and other
predators.

The environment
The beach was cloose to a busy harbor with many
kinds of vessels.
The water was very muddy and it was hard to see
longer than half a meter down. It was caused by the
sedement which had blended around with the water.
It was not only this that made the water muddy there
was also garbage and dumping from the leasure
boats close by.
The beach was rocky and the bottom was clayey.
The vegetation was low and also the number of
speaces.

The upper middle intertidal zone

This zone is a bit dryer, then the lower parts of
the middle intertidal.
Its not common to find organisms living on the
sand area, they usualy hide beneth and behind
stones etc. to be prepered for tides, and to
keep a little bit wet

The environment of the upper zone

A lot of sediment, sand and Calcium
Carbonate, maybe from the delta
Many rocks, occupied by oysters,
barnicals and algeas
Most of the sand was wet and muddy,
especially further down.
It became dryer the closer you got to the
rockey part of the zone
The entire middle intertidal was shaped by
wave splasches and other abiotic factors

The most common organisms in

the middle intetidal zone
Organisms
Crassostrea gigas
Algeas like Ulva Lactuca
Barnicals
Crabs, Carcinus Maenas
Seaweed
Mytulis edulis
Tiny organisms like Ligia
Oceanica (live on rockey
beaches) and Copepoda
(Tisbe)

Crassostrea gigas
Crassostrea gigas belongs to the phylum
Bivalvia
It has an asymetrical, long and thin body and
can be up to 30 cm long.
Apart from its body they allso have an
lillaccolored scare next to the sphincter that
makes them different from other oysters.
The bottom shell is concave and the upper shell
is more flat but still concave.

 The form is varying depents on the bottom

and other condictions.
Crassostrea gigas comes from the
Japanse cost but has been spreed allmost
all over the world. Becauce of more or less
sucessful oysterfarming.

Ulva lactuca

Ulva lactuca can be up to 20 cm high/wide

It looks like a green and thin lettuce

There is two kinds of Ulva lactuca:

There is the light green one thats just one cell thick and the dark green
one thats 2 cell thick.

Its comon near the shore where the wateris moving

It use to cling fast to stones

It use to live on up to 1 m deept but it have been found at 15 m deep in

the baltic sea

Barnicals
Semibalanus balanoides
The shell is up to 2 cm in diameter and 1-6 cm
high.
They usually grow on rocks and other hard
materials.
Barnicals are mostly covered by water in high
tides.
They can survive in dryer periods, when its low
tide, and lower temperatur in the winter time.
The shells grow very close to eachother, mainly
because of the lack of space.

Results & Discussion

There was a lot of sessile organisms
Crassostrea gigas was the most comon
organism, high salinity
Lots of junk, human factors
Hiding / keep wet

List of references
Kie, M. (2004). Havets Djur. Kpenhamn;
Nordisk Forlag A/S
Kemp,M-J. (2007). Marine Biology sixth
edition. New York; McGraw-Hill
Companies
Anderberg, S, A. (2007). Havet-Illustrerat
uppslagsverk. London; Globe Frlaget
Johnsson, L. (2001). Bildkompendium
Marina Evertebrater. Tjrn; -