1. Wave Exposure and Species Diversity
Allyson MacDougall, Kristy Lanigan, Marlee Rideout, Sydney Phelan

2. “Does the wave exposure of a shoreline affect species diversity?”
Our Experiment
“Does the wave exposure of a shoreline affect species diversity?”

3. Green’s Point
Rocky intertidal area of high wave exposure at Green’s Point in Saint John, New Brunswick

4. Ecological Processes Recruitment Competition Predation
Species coming into the environment
Competition
Species interaction (growing/settling/food consumption)
Predation
Can determine upper and/or lower limits for species settlement

5. Physical Processes Wave action Temperature Desiccation Emersion time
More or less (stress on organisms)
Temperature
Species have specific temperatures they can live and grow in (stress on organisms)
Desiccation
Drying out
Emersion time
Time spent out of water
Immersion time
Time spent submerged in water

6. Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis
The hypothesis states that areas of intermediate disturbance will have greater species diversity than areas of high or low disturbance
In areas of high disturbance the physical factors prevent a large species diversity from settling
In areas of low disturbance the biological factors, predation specifically, prevent a high species diversity from settling

7. Hypothesis
There will be a higher species diversity in an area with less wave exposure

8. Materials and Methods:
Two sites: High wave exposure & low wave exposure
Rocky intertidal zone
Materials:
50 x 50 cm quadrat
transit
transect line
meter stick

9. Experimental Design Site 1: Low wave exposure
large rocks, higher percent of plant coverage
Site 2: High wave exposure
small cobble stones, gravel, sand grains, low percent plant coverage

10. Data Collection: 10 quadrat sampled at each site
Site 1: 100-meters samples taken every 10m
Site 2: 50-meters, samples at 5m intervals

11. Results – Shannon-Wiener Index

12. Results – Simpson’s Diversity Index

13. Results LWE site: 0% diversity from 60 – 100m
HWE site: 0% diversity at ~7 arbitrarily spaced quadrats

14. Results - LWE

15. Results - HWE

16. Species Found- Site 1 Mytilus edulis - Blue mussel
Littorina littorea - Periwinkle
Fucus vesiculosis - Bladder wrack
Ascophyllum nodosum - Knotted wrack
Polysiphonia - Red alga

17. Species Found - Site 2 Littorina littorea - Periwinkle Thais - Whelk
Ascophyllum nodosum - Knotted wrack
Semibalanus balanoides - Barnacles
Fucus vesiculosis - Bladder wrack

18. Discussion
Overall, there was a higher species diversity in the low wave exposure site

19. Low Wave Exposure Site: Rocky
Plant species were able to attach and adhere to the surface of rocks
Protection/shelter for invertebrate species
Dessication
High Wave Exposure Site:
Sandy Substrate
More difficult for plants to find an area to attach to
Cobble rocks continuously moving-wiping invertebrates off their attachment site
No protection/shelter for invertebrate species
60m-100m from the edge of the water there was 0% diversity- rocks were more damp near the waters edge and therefore desiccation further up from the waters edge may have caused this
More difficult for plants to find an area to attach to (waves continuously rip plants off)

20. Predicted:
Steeper slope = more wave exposure
Less of a slope = less wave exposure
Results:
Steeper slope at low wave exposure site
Might be due to the location of the intertidal along the cove
Topography of the intertidal zone
Placement of transit line
Rocks in the way of level rod (not accurately placed on the soil)

21. Previous Studies Bustamante & Branch (2004)
Less species diversity at high wave exposed sites
Morris et al (2002)
Less plant coverage at high wave exposed sites
Thomasen et al (2013)
Low wave exposure sites = more dense abundance of plant species

22. Future Studies More replicates More sites Intermediate wave exposure
More accurate way to measure plant coverage
We estimated plant coverage, in the future it would be more beneficial to use a quadrat with little squares so more accurately measure plant coverage