Associated Effects of Beach Grooming on Intertidal Organisms Essay

Associated Effects of Beach Grooming on Intertidal Organisms - Essay Example The importance of measuring the macrofauna that is evident inside large kelp wracks ensures the survival or extinction of many species that flourish within the macrofauna community. Such specimens as hopper, work+Poly and crab are the subject of this paper and their capacity to flourish in numbers in either a groomed or ungroomed sandy beach. The kelp wracks provide an immense macro- and micro-organism breading ground along with sustainable features necessary to fulfill their existence. These numbers were inputted via t-test and produced outputs for their mean variance and their percentages equivalent to the groomed and ungroomed beach. The first of two samples was taken in the early morning prior to any grooming and a second sample was completed in the early afternoon along the transects that ran perpendicular to the line formed by the water's edge. Each sample consisted of a shovel full of sand and the organisms in it. The sand was then sieved in order to count all the organisms in each of the samples and was recorded on the data sheet. The t-tests and analysis/graphs are at the end of this report. There was some wrack present in the first sample and very little in the second sample. The transect continued on for the prescribed 30m long zone and 5m shoreward of the berm and was run down towards the water. Each sample was taken at every 2-meter transect line and to preserve the area after testing, each hole was filled in after data was collected. Discussion The goal of this research is to enter into discussion the three areas respecting the sandy beach ecosystem. These include patterns of Zonation, density and species diversity and the association of sandy beach invertebrate in ungroomed and groomed sand beaches. Pattern of Zonation Dahl (1952) identified three different zones attributed to the "amount of tidal inundation: 1) subterrestial fringe (Talitrid-Ocypodid belt); midlittoral zone (Cirolanid isopods); and the sub-littoral fringe (rich and varied fauna)" (Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary: Sandy Beaches, 2006). It has been found that an additional zone should be added for beaches in central California, called "swash zone" (MBNMS, 2006) and the following figure is relative to the fauna zone as outlined by Dahl: Figure 1. Faunal zonation on the Moss Landing beach. From Oakden and Nybakken 1977. source: http://www.montereybay.noaa.gov/sitechar/images/beachf3.gif Many of the meiofauna species which inhabit the interstitial spaces between the sand grains are impacted by the actual sand grain size and depending on the tidal fluctuations that are present to either remove large or small parts of the tidal silt. This impacts the collectivity of the interstitial fauna. Many people who don't understand the communities which are present within both the silt layers and the content of the sand for feeding and breeding purposes need to understand that beach grooming has a large ecological impact on the macrofauna culture. Measure the association of sandy beach invertebrates and kelp wrack A study completed by the National Park Service, Channel Islands National Park measured the invertebrates found within the kelp wrack in 1999 in samplings found at nine different sites characteristic of "core transects to measure infauna, point-contact transect to measure macrophyte wrack" in an effort to gauge the level of these communities.