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Beach Wrack
Beach wrack or marine wrack is organic material (e.g. kelp, seagrass, driftwood) and other debris deposited at high tide on beaches and other coastal areas. This material acts as a natural input of marine resources into a terrestrial system, providing food and habitat for a variety of coastal organisms. Physical characteristics The wrack zone is most commonly associated with a sandy beach habitat but can also be present in rocky shores, mangroves, salt marshes, and other coastal systems. Debris is carried up the intertidal zone as the tide comes in, and is deposited on the sand when the tide goes out. The zone can be recognized as a linear patch of debris toward the upper part of a beach running parallel to the water's edge. The location of the wrack zone varies geographically and temporally. It is found at a higher elevation during spring tides compared to neap tides. The size of a beach and its intertidal zone will influence the location of wrack deposition. Additionally, sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrack Line Reveals Last High Tide Mark Near The Dunes
Wrack may refer to: * wrack (mathematics), a concept in knot theory * wrack (seaweed), several species of seaweed * beach wrack, organic material deposited at high tide on beaches. * ''Wrack (novel), Wrack'', a novel by James Bradley (Australian writer) * Charlie Wrack (1899–1979), English footballer * Darren Wrack (born 1976), English footballer * Matt Wrack (born 1962), British firefighter and trade unionist * Wrack (horse), Wrack, the leading broodmare sire in North America in 1935 * Wrack (video game), ''Wrack'' (video game), A first person shooter video game made by Final Boss Entertainment See also * Rack (other) {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-boundary Subsidy
Cross-boundary subsidies are caused by organisms or materials that cross or traverse habitat patch boundaries, subsidizing the resident populations. The transferred organisms and materials may provide additional predators, prey, or nutrients to resident species, which can affect community and food web structure. Cross-boundary subsidies of materials and organisms occur in landscapes composed of different habitat patch types, and so depend on characteristics of those patches and on the boundaries in between them. Human alteration of the landscape, primarily through fragmentation, has the potential to alter important cross-boundary subsidies to increasingly isolated habitat patches. Understanding how processes that occur outside of habitat patches can affect populations within them may be important to habitat management. Introduction and development of the concept The concept of cross-boundary subsidies developed out of a merging of ideas from the studies of landscape ecology and f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seawall
A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation, and leisure activities from the action of tides, waves, or tsunamis. As a seawall is a static feature, it will conflict with the dynamic nature of the coast and impede the exchange of sediment between land and sea. Seawall designs factor in local climate, coastal position, wave regime (determined by wave characteristics and effectors), and value (morphological characteristics) of landform. Seawalls are hard engineering shore-based structures that protect the coast from erosion. Various environmental issues may arise from the construction of a seawall, including the disruption of sediment movement and transport patterns. Combined with a high construction cost, this has led to increasing use of other soft engineering coastal management ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioaccumulation
Bioaccumulation is the gradual accumulation of substances, such as pesticides or other chemicals, in an organism. Bioaccumulation occurs when an organism absorbs a substance faster than it can be lost or eliminated by catabolism and excretion. Thus, the longer the biological half-life of a toxic substance, the greater the risk of chronic poisoning, even if environmental levels of the toxin are not very high. Bioaccumulation, for example in fish, can be predicted by models. Hypothesis for molecular size cutoff criteria for use as bioaccumulation potential indicators are not supported by data. Biotransformation can strongly modify bioaccumulation of chemicals in an organism. Toxicity induced by metals is associated with bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Storage or uptake of a metal faster than it is metabolized and excreted leads to the accumulation of that metal. The presence of various chemicals and harmful substances in the environment can be analyzed and assessed with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plastic Pollution
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized by size into micro-, meso-, or macro debris. Plastics are inexpensive and durable, making them very adaptable for different uses; as a result, manufacturers choose to use plastic over other materials. However, the chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of environmental degradation, degradation and as a result they are slow to degrade. Together, these two factors allow large volumes of plastic to enter the environment as mismanaged waste which persists in the ecosystem and travels throughout food webs. Plastic pollution can afflict land, waterways and oceans. It is estimated that 1.1 to 8.8'' ''million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean from coastal communities each year. It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albatross Carcass And Marine Debris
Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains of short-tailed albatross show they lived there up to the Pleistocene, and occasional vagrants are found. Great albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, with wingspans reaching up to and bodies over in length. The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but disagreement exists over the number of species. Albatrosses are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. They feed on squid, fish, and krill by either scavenging, surface seizing, or diving. Albatrosses are colonial, nesting for the most part on remote oceanic islands, often with several species nesting together ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dune
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes, with little or no vegetation, are called ''Erg (landform), ergs'' or ''sand seas''. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the wiktionary:stoss, stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter ''slip face'' in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a ''dune slack''. Dunes are most common in desert environments, where the lack of moisture hinders the growth of vegetation that would otherwise interfere with the development of dunes. However, sand deposits are not restricted to deserts, and dunes are also found along sea shores, along streams in semiarid climates, in areas of Outwash plain, glacial outwash ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oviparity
Oviparous animals are animals that reproduce by depositing fertilized zygotes outside the body (i.e., by laying or spawning) in metabolically independent incubation organs known as eggs, which nurture the embryo into moving offsprings known as hatchlings with little or no embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method used by most animal species, as opposed to viviparous animals that develop the embryos internally and metabolically dependent on the maternal circulation, until the mother gives birth to live juveniles. Ovoviviparity is a special form of oviparity where the eggs are retained inside the mother (but still metabolically independent), and are carried internally until they hatch and eventually emerge outside as well-developed juveniles similar to viviparous animals. Modes of reproduction The traditional modes of reproduction include oviparity, taken to be the ancestral condition, traditionally where either unfertilised oocytes or f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coelopa Pilipes
''Coelopa pilipes'' (common name kelp fly or seaweed fly) is a common European species of kelp fly. It was species description, described by Alexander Henry Haliday, A. H. Haliday in 1838. Their appearance differs greatly from that of other ''Coelopa'' flies. ''C. pilipes'' are especially prevalent in European beaches. Year-round, these flies live in washed-up kelp on wrack zones of beaches before adulthood and consume the Carrion, decaying kelp, mostly of the genera ''Laminaria'' and ''Fucus'' that have a great impact on the flies' survival. Female flies lay eggs in the decaying seaweed, and larvae mature in the warm, moist environment it provides. ''C. pilipes'' has significant sympatry with ''C. frigida''; the two flies are often studied together due to their overlapping habitats and distribution. Morphology In general, seaweed flies are dark-colored, small or medium-sized flies with hairs or bristles. Darker color makes the adults more distinguishable from other species, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelp Fly
Kelp fly is one common name of species of flies in a number of Taxonomic rank#Ranks in zoology, families of "true Fly, flies" or Fly, Diptera. They generally feed on stranded and rotting seaweed, particularly kelp in the wrack zone. When conditions are suitable they are very numerous and may be ecologically important in the turnover of organic material on the coast.Griffiths C. L., Stenton-Dozey J. M. E., Koop K.,1983, Kelp wrack and energy flow through a sandy beach. Sandy beaches as ecosystems, A. McLachlan & T. Erasmus (eds.), W. Junk, The Hague,547–556 In this role they also may be an important item in the diet of beach-dwelling animals and birds. The flies most generally referred to as kelp flies are the widely distributed Coelopidae, such as ''Coelopa pilipes''. In popular speech however, they are not clearly distinguished from other flies with similar feeding habits, such as the Heterocheilidae, the Helcomyzidae, Helcomyzinae and sundry members of the Anthomyiidae.McAlpine, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rove Beetle
The rove beetles are a family (biology), family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra (wing covers) that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With over 66,000 species in thousands of genera, the group is one of the largest families in the beetle order, and one of the largest families of organisms. It is an ancient group that first appeared during the Middle Jurassic based on definitive records of fossilized rove beetles, with the Late Triassic taxon ''Leehermania'' more likely belonging to Myxophaga. They are an ecologically and morphologically diverse group of beetles, and commonly encountered in terrestrial ecosystems. One well-known species is the devil's coach-horse beetle (''Ocypus olens''). For some other species, see List of rove beetle (Staphylinidae) species recorded in Britain, list of British rove beetles. Anatomy As might be expected for such a large family, considerable variation exists among the spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polychaete
Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine Annelid, annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. More than 10,000 species are described in this class. Common representatives include the lugworm (''Arenicola marina'') and the Alitta virens, sandworm or Alitta succinea, clam worm ''Alitta''. Polychaetes as a class are robust and widespread, with species that live in the coldest ocean temperatures of the abyssal plain, to forms which tolerate the extremely high temperatures near hydrothermal vents. Polychaetes occur throughout the Earth's oceans at all depths, from forms that live as plankton near the surface, to a 2- to 3-cm specimen (still unclassified) observed by the robot ocean probe Nereus (underwater vehicle), ''Nereus'' at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest known spot in the Earth's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
