I am doing a project in school comparing the differences between living
organisms found in two different oceanic enviroments at low tide. I was
wondering if you could answer a few of my questions, since I am not able to
find the answers anywhere on the web. I was first wondering if there was a
difference between the quantity and kind of animals found on a Pacific Ocean
beach at low tide and a Puget Sound beach (inland saltwater) at low tide. If
there is a difference, what causes it? If you could direct me to any
websites that would help me in my research, that would be great too. Thank
you so much for your help!
-Laura
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Laura,
I think I figured out what your question was about. First, realize that
technically, Puget Sound is part of the Pacific Ocean. Also, realize that
the Pacific Ocean is a very nebulous term, because it covers a huge expanse
of water.
Your question essentially is about zoogeography and what drives animal
distribution and densities. Resources (e.g., food, shelter) and physical
parameters (e.g., salinity tolerance, temperature tolerance, habitat type
[e.g., rocky bottom vs sandy bottom] are these driving factors.
I cannot emphasize enough to everyone out there -- the Internet, while it is
a wonderful resource, is NOT the end-all be-all for researching a topic. It
can be a good starting point, but I cannot urge you enough to go use a
public or school library to fully research your topic. Telling me that you
looked all over the Internet to find the answer to your question tells me
that this was the starting (and probably you hoped it was the ending as
well) point for your research.
That said, since this is a school project, you're on your own for finding
out the rest of the answers to your questions. If you get stuck, you can
write back to either me or WhaleNet.
Good luck!
Dagmar Fertl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Nov 25 2003 - 16:35:26 EST