Document Type

Article

Publication Date

May 2007

Publication Title

Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom

First Page

735

Last Page

739

Disciplines

Biology

Abstract

Waves breaking on rocky shorelines impart large forces on intertidal organisms, sometimes dislodging individuals. Dislodged individuals may be deposited in habitats that have a greater risk of predation or that prevent return to preferred regions on the shore. Thus, dislodgement is often assumed to be lethal. We experimentally dislodged Littorina keenae snails from high in the intertidal zone to test the likelihood of survival. Under a variety of wave conditions, we measured return rates to the high shore of 54–90%, so in this species, dislodgement is not equal to death. Snails showed a strong preference for returning to the approximate tidal height from which they were dislodged, but we found no evidence of widespread homing behaviour back to the original site of dislodgement.

Comments

This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom,2007 , copyright Cambridge University Press , available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025315407055221

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