The Biology of Seashores - DVD
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The Biology of Seashores is ideal for teaching concepts of life science and ecology by focusing on intertidal ecology and the diversity of life found at the seashore. The program can be used as an introduction or review of a general unit on ecology, animal biology, or marine studies, or a unit that concentrates on seashore studies.

Contents

Conditions on the Seashore

Introduction - shows the diversity of seashore life in a habitat often pounded by large waves. Raises questions to engage the viewer, such as how do organisms in this environment survive and reproduce?
Tides - An animation explaning the role of the sun, moon and earth in the pattern of tides.
Seashore Conditions: Abiotic Factors – Covers wave shock and abrasion, fresh water, temperature fluctuations and drying/desication.
Seashore Conditions: Biotic Factors – Covers competition for space; microhabitats, production on the seashore; and plankton and detritus as sources of food to form the base of most food webs.

Adaptations for Intertidal Life

Adaptations for Wave Shock - Attachments to rocks, flexibility, adhesion using both suction and chemical adhesives, hiding under rocks and excavating protective pockets.
Adaptations for Defense – Stinging cell function and structure, nudibranchs borrow stinging cells, warning coloration. Shells. Bryozoan avicularia defend a colony. Sea urchin spines and pedicellaria. Escape response in the scallop and abalone.
Adaptations for Feeding - The role of cilia (and flagella) in moving water through filter feeders - sponges, mussels, bryozoans, and tunicates. Barnacle feeding. Feeding on detritus by cucumbers, urchins, and feather-duster worms. Rasping and grazing by gastropods such as limpets and snails, showing the radula in action.
Adaptations: Predation and the Role Of Chemicals – Chemical receptors on crabs, nudibranchs and sea stars. Birds as intertidal predators at low tide.
Reproductive Strategies – Asexual reproduction involving splitting and budding to produce colonies in hydrazoans, bryozoans, and tunicates. Sexual reproduction by broadcasting eggs and sperm. Hermaphroditic mating in nudibranchs and barnacles.
Sea Urchin Reproduction – Fertilization, cell division, blastula, gastrulation, feeding in the gastrula larva, development showing several stages, metamorphosis, settling, and life as a juvenile.
The Plankton Nursery – Planktonic larval life stages and their development. Release of larvae. Life stages of barnacles (nauplius and cypris), crabs (zoea and megalops), clams (veliger). Alternating life cycles in Obelia.

Seashore Habitats and Inhabitants

Rocky Shore Habitats – Intertidal zonation and its causes. Exposure determines upper limit, while predation influences lower distribution. The high intertidal zone: definition, characteristics and inhabitants. The middle intertidal zone: definition, characteristics and inhabitants and their feeding strategies. Mid tide zone tidepools. Low intertidal zone: definition, characteristics and inhabitants and their feeding strategies.
Sandy Beach Habitats – Conditions. Biology of mole crabs. Collecting and observing the Meiofauna from sandy beaches. Drift piles and their inhabitants, including beach hoppers (amphipods).
Mudflat and Estuary Habitats – Diversity of muddy bays. Eelgrass beds as habitat for diverse organisms and nurseries for fish. A diversity of invertebrates, including phoronid worms, clams, ghost shrimp, hairy-gilled worms, and fat inkeepers. Mudflats as habitat for bird populations
Docks and Piling Habitats - Observation methods. Habitat for filter feeders.