Patterns of the Productivity, Competitive ability of Algae and look at the

environmental conditions on diversity of species

Introduction
The rocky shore hosts a range of different species. Macroalgae often dominate these intertidal zones especially
when the shore is more sheltered. The dominant algae found on rocky shores often changes with height
creating zonation. Rocky shores often have a strong zonation pattern (Raffo et al., 2014). This is due to
competition from other species. Normally you expect to see an increase in marine species towards the low
shore. This means that the Macroalgae will nearly always favour being lower down the shore where the
physical conditions are less harsh. The Different Species will compete for space lower down the shore and the
more dominant algae will push the other algae out and move them up the shore. For the rocky shore Ynys
Fealog on Anglesey, Wales the dominant algae are Ascophyllum nodosum followed by Fucus
spiralis, and finally Pelvetia Canaliculata, meaning the Ascophyllum is found furthest
down the shore. Ascophyllum nodosum is a Brown alga found only in the north Atlantic
Ocean. Fucus spiralis is another brown alga that is found in the north Atlantic. Pelvetia
Canaliculata is a brown alga that is more resistant to desiccation than the other 2 algae
and can survive up to 8 days out of water (Tyler-Walters, 2008). Three hypotheses were
looked at: one being that when conditions are more benign, productivity increases. The second
hypothesis was Algae competitive ability increase from high to low on the shore. The Final Hypothesis that was
looked at was Environmental conditions are harsher on the high than the low shore, reducing diversity of
species.

Discussion
The Ascophyllum was significantly bigger than the other two algae. The mean was 117.44cm for
Ascophyllum nodosum compared to 34.63cm for Fucus spiralis and 12.74cm for Pelvetia
Canaliculata. This could be due to living in favourable conditions. Because algae need
water to survive, the lower down the shore they are the bigger they can grow. Algae that
is large higher up the shore is at risk from desiccation. Hence the Pelvetia algae was
growing less big. Another reason for the size difference is the fact that the dominant
algae is found further down the shore. The height of an organism often means that the
productivity is higher. In a terrestrial rainforest ecosystem, the tall trees typically grow in
a way that allows for greater productivity, Creating one of the highest productive
ecosystems (King et al., 2005). The Rocky shore has the same effect. The rocky shore marine
organisms need water with nutrients to survive so the lower down the shore you get, the
more productivity you would expect to see (Kraufvelin et al., 2009). As well height being
greater lower down the shore the sum of the algae coverage is also bigger in the
Ascophyllum zone than the other two zones. The sum of the algae cover for number was
105.8% exceeding 100% meaning that a significant amount of quadrat samples taken
contained lots of other species of algae amongst the Ascophyllum and lots of algae
underneath other algae. This would also increase the productivity of the Ascophyllum
zone. The results were more surprising when looking at the Fucus zone and Pelvetia zone.
The Pelvetia zone had a higher sum coverage 76.8% compared to 60.0% for the Fucus
zone. This refutes the hypothesis that productivity is lower the further up the shore you
go. If there is a greater coverage in the Pelvetia zone, then you’d expect to see greater
productivity in that zone compared to the Fucus zone. The number of species seen in
each zone backs up the first hypothesis that the productivity is higher lower down the
shore. The highest number of species is found in the Ascophyllum zone followed by the
Fucus zone and then Pelvetia zone. The large amount of diversity found in the Fucus zone
could cause the percentage cover of Algae to decrease, particularly from predation. A
Larger number of organisms living lower down the shore (a mean number of species, 4.7
for the Ascophyllum zone, 5.0 for the fucus zone and 3.1 for the Pelvetia zone) means
that there is more energy to be gained from living lower down the shore. The conditions
lower down the shore are more physically benign but the competition by the algae and
predation on algae would make the conditions less benign. It shows just how much
benefit there is to living lower down the shore.

All marine organisms want to live down the shore. Any organism that can live further
down the shore must have overtaken the other species. For a species to live in
favourable conditions they must first outcompete the other species that want to occupy
the same niche. The Ascophyllum has clearly better competitive ability compared to the
Fucus and Pelvetia as it is found further down the shore. This is also true that the
competitive ability of any organism living lower down the shore is higher. The only thing
that refutes the hypothesis is that pelvetia might have a better competitive ability in its
own zone compared to the fucus because the percentage cover for algae is greater. That
is because Pelvetia has adapted to life on the high shore being outcompeted lower down
the shore, and that the macroalgae in the fucus zone is being displaced or eaten by the
abundance of marine organism in that zone. This means that the biological factors are
having a greater effect (Hawkins & Hartnoll, 1983).

If environmental conditions are harsher higher up the shore, then the organisms that live
there are adapted to live longer without the presence of water. The diversity of the
species was seen to be greater in the lower two zones. You expect to see that the
response for macroinvertebrates and macroalgae to environmental conditions will be the
same (Vinagre et al., 2016). One possible explanation why the fucus zone contains lots of
species could be either that more dominant species are pushing them further up the
shore. Equally the species could all prefer feeding on Fucus spiralis. Another answer is
that it is completely down to chance that there was a slightly higher number of species in
the Fucus zone. The diversity isn’t affected as much by the dominant algae as it is by the
shore height. The height above water for the Ascophyllum zone compared to the bottom
of the fucus zone wasn’t that different which would explain the high diversity in the Fucus
zone as well. The biggest gradient was seen in the Fucus zone so whilst recordings of the
highly diverse number of species that live lower down the shore was taken, there could
have also been some species recorded in that zone that have adapted to live further up
the shore and they would have been boosting the diversity recorded. The Report (Konar et
al., 2010) Seems to back up the idea that more species could be found in the midshore A
look at figure 5 shows that more species were recorded in the Ascophyllum than the
Fucus zone, but more people were recording the same species in the Fucus zone which
made the mean number of species become higher in that zone.

Due to Data being was recorded by zone meant that everything was much more focused
on the Algae Zonation than the shore height. Vertical Zonation is the main factor for
littoral distribution when looking on a smaller scale (Chappuis et al., 2014). Using shore height
would have been a better independent variable. It also meant that because the zones
varied in size it was harder to do random sampling with the quadrat in the smaller zones
because there was greater chance of going into another transect or even counting data
twice. This meant that the Data collected for the zones if shore height would have been
more accurate. Ynys Faelog, the rocky shore was used, was also quite small creating the
same problem of small zones anyway. Collecting data from a bigger rocky shore or
multiple rocky shore’s would have been better. The Data Collected for the species was
only counted as one per species which didn’t tell you how many species were in the
Zone. A calculation of the diversity index would have told you more about the trends
between the different zones looked at. Some of the instructions for the fieldwork were
unclear leading to some anomalies in the graph for the algal height. This is due to the
heights of the wrong algae being measured for certain results. Overall whilst there are
limitations to the methods carried out by this practical, there will most likely be
limitations to which ever way you decide to carry out the data collection. Each causing
their own problems (Hartnoll & Hawkins, 1980).
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