Abundance of life is important to study because of what it suggests.  It conveys an overall guide to how an ecosystem is doing.  The intertidal zone it self is its own ecosystem.  The abundance of organisms in this area is great and is still growing.  To get a sense of the abundance of life in the intertidal zone, you can read and view the results from the experiment, Analysis of Field Data in the Intertidal Zone, [Field Study].

            "The main objective [was] to document and collect data from each quadrat [of the organisms encountered] (Lagliva, 1)."  This experiment conveyed the number of species in a quadrat.  They were able to quantify each species present in that quadrat, therefore presenting the reader with an overall distribution of the organisms.

            The quadrat was placed in every 2 meters, starting at 0 meters.  They collected data from each of the 3 intertidal zones: the upper intertidal, the mid-intertidal, and the low interdial.  The distribution of species in each zone is varied due to the differences in the time each zone is submerged in water.  The different species can be viewed here, in the [Organisms] page.

            One major observation in the intertidal zone is that everything is based on their interactions.  A certain type of interaction in the intertidal zone is competition.  This website will focus mostly on competition and the significance of competition among different organisms and their importance on the environment provides an increase in diversity and species richness.

            We will first look at how the intertidal zone, and how it is made up, then onto the organisms that exist in the intertidal zone.  Next: how competition plays a major role in their interaction, and how that interaction either increases, or decreases species richness.  Finally, the study of algal competition, and how it proves that competition does increase species richness.