Meeting Abstract

55.10  Tuesday, Jan. 6  A bumpy road: the effects of surface complexity on a dominant intertidal limpet PEROTTI, Elizabeth A.*; LINDBERG, David R.; ESTES, James A.; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Santa Cruz marinelizard@berkeley.edu

Rock substrates and their properties structure the physical environment of many marine benthic communities. Previous research suggests that surface complexity is important for abundance, recruitment, and behavior of a variety of taxa. This study investigated the relative importance of surface complexity to the ecology of a dominant territorial limpet, Lottia gigantea. Our results demonstrate that the limpet communities on San Nicolas Island, California are heterogeneous, substrate-driven, and have the potential to greatly affect algal communities, space competitors, and other limpets. L. gigantea size decreased nonlinearly with substrate topography (TI=topographic index), even though there were significant differences in TI between northern and southern regions of the island. Rock units also exhibited differential erosional responses to wave exposure, indicating that the composition and geologic histories of rock units can present to organisms, unique intertidal habitats with respect to surface complexity.