Nahant

Througout the semester we visited another coastal site at Nahant, MA, at the Northeastern University Marine Science Center.  Here students independently designed projects based mostly on the intertidal zone.  These projects arose from observations that were made on our first visit to the site in early September. I observed great variation in the size of Littorina littorea.  Literature has shown that smaller individuals are found more often in the lower limit of the species' distruibution, while larger individuals are found in the upper limit. Because of the variation in physical and biological pressures between the tide zones, I hypothesized that different size L. littorea would be favored in different tidal zones.  For this project, I collected samples from the three tidal zones for two days, measured each snail, and assesed the results statitically, using a t-test, and graphical comparisons.  For both days, the size distribution groups found in the low and mid zones were very similar, and the high tide zone differed from both.