Littoral rock and other hard substrata

Littoral rock includes habitats of bedrock, boulders and cobbles which occur in the intertidal zone (the area of the shore between high and low tides) and the splash zone. The upper limit is marked by the top of the lichen zone and the lower limit by the top of the laminarian kelp zone. There are many physical variables affecting rocky shore communities – wave exposure, salinity, temperature and the diurnal emersion and immersion of the shore. Wave exposure is most commonly used to characterise littoral rock, from ‘extremely exposed’ on the open coast to ‘extremely sheltered’ in enclosed inlets. Exposed shores tend to support faunal-dominated communities of barnacles and mussels and some robust seaweeds. Sheltered shores are most notable for their dense cover of fucoid seaweeds, with distinctive zones occurring down the shore. In between these extremes of wave exposure, on moderately exposed shores, mosaics of seaweeds and barnacles are more typical.