Research/Project Results

Temperate Rainforest Biome

Taipa/Mangonui, Page 4

Biotic Data:  Plants

     Students recorded the distribution of plants in each of the quadrats, along the transects.  They also took photographs of the seaweed attached to the rocks.  They also learned about the importance of the plants as they researched the animals that they found.       

     If you would like to see the data that they collected, click here.

     Seaweed, Corallina officinalis, appears to be green algae.  It seemed to be mostly located between 4m and 7 m from the low tide mark.  This means that it will be exposed to the drying effects of air for a moderate period of time, but not as long as organisms located at the 13 m mark.  This indicates that they can tolerate only a medium amount of drying from the sun.

     The seaweed was not evident below the 4 m level.  When the tide is in this would place the weed a medium depth under water, not as deep as if it were at the 1 m mark.  Perhaps at deeper levels there is less sunlight for photosynthesis.  

     Students also felt that perhaps more study was needed to insure that all areas of the rock would have generated similar results.

This photograph shows both periwinkles and green algae attached to the rocks.  Plants that grow on the rocks need to be anchored to the rock surface so that they do not wash away with the tide.  Plants are the start of any food chain, and as such are some of the most important organisms in any ecosystem.  

Many of the animals that live on these rocks are filter feeders.  They draw in water and filter out phytoplankton, small free floating algae-like plant cells, or they filter out zooplankton, small free floating animals that feed on the phytoplankton.  The base of much of the ocean food chain is phytoplankton.  These free floating algae cells float near the ocean surface to that they can photosynthesize.  If they had to be rooted to the bottom of the ocean, they wouldn't be able to absorb enough sunlight to photosynthesize, and would thus die.