The Intertidal | UnderH2O | PBS Digital Studios

Summary

The video explores the challenging environment of the intertidal zone, the area between the highest and lowest tides. Organisms here face extreme fluctuations in salinity, temperature, and wave energy. Tide pools, formed during low tide, are home to various species, including small fish and algae. These organisms must adapt to survive in the harsh conditions, as water evaporates and salinity rises. As the tide recedes, space becomes limited, forcing fish to migrate within the pools until the tide returns. The video emphasizes the resilience and unique adaptations of marine life in this dynamic habitat.

Takeaways

• 🌊 The marine environment presents significant challenges for animal survival.
• 🌍 The intertidal zone, between the lowest low tide and the highest high tide, is one of the harshest marine environments.
• ⚡ Organisms in the intertidal zone face extreme fluctuations in salinity, temperature, and intense wave energy.
• 🐠 Tide pools are formed when the tide goes out, leaving behind shallow water areas on the shore.
• 🔥 As the tide pools become cut off from the ocean, water evaporation increases salinity and temperature, creating stressful conditions for organisms.
• 🪸 Coral reefs do not thrive in tide pools due to these harsh conditions, and the substrate is usually bare rock or covered in algae.
• 🐟 Some fish, especially small-bodied and juvenile species, are able to survive in tide pools.
• 🧭 Certain species, like the blenny, spend their entire adult life in tide pools.
• 💧 As water evaporates during low tide, fish must migrate within the tide pools to find the remaining water habitats.
• 🌊 Once the incoming tide replenishes the water, the tide pool environment changes, and it becomes dangerous to remain due to strong waves.

Q & A

What is the intertidal zone?

The intertidal zone is the area between the lowest low tide and the highest high tide, characterized by extreme fluctuations in environmental conditions.

Why is the intertidal zone considered one of the most challenging marine environments?

The intertidal zone is subjected to harsh conditions like wild fluctuations in salinity, temperature, and constant wave energy, making it a highly challenging environment for organisms.

What are some adaptations organisms in the intertidal zone have developed?

Organisms in the intertidal zone have adaptations that allow them to tolerate extreme salinity and temperature changes, as well as the physical stress of wave action.

What happens to tide pools during low tide?

During low tide, tide pools are cut off from the ocean, and the sun heats the water, causing evaporation. This increases the salinity, making the environment stressful for organisms.

Why can't corals survive in tide pools?

Corals cannot survive in tide pools because they are unable to handle the fluctuating conditions, such as changes in salinity and temperature.

What types of organisms typically inhabit tide pools?

Tide pools are generally inhabited by small-bodied fishes, algae, and some species like blennies that are adapted to these extreme conditions. Many juvenile fish also live in tide pools before moving to the coral reefs.

What happens to the fish in tide pools as water evaporates?

As the water evaporates, habitat availability shrinks, causing fish to migrate to the last remaining tide pools, where space becomes highly competitive.

How do fish survive in such small and often isolated tide pools?

Fish that live in tide pools are often small-bodied and have adaptations to withstand the extreme conditions like high salinity, heat, and reduced space.

Why is the tide pool environment different from a coral reef?

Unlike coral reefs, tide pools have harsher conditions that corals cannot tolerate. Instead of coral, the substrate in tide pools is often bare rock or covered with algae.

What does the incoming tide signify for the tide pool environment?

The incoming tide replenishes the water supply in tide pools, but it also marks the end of human exploration of the area, as it brings back stronger wave energy.

Outlines

00:00

🌊 Marine Survival Challenges in the Intertidal Zone

Marine organisms face extreme challenges, especially in the intertidal zone—an area between the lowest and highest tides. This environment experiences harsh fluctuations in salinity, temperature, and powerful wave energy. The plants and animals here must adapt to survive conditions unlike any other in the marine world.

🌞 Tide Pools: A Temporary Marine Habitat

When the tide recedes, tide pools are exposed. In Hawaii, the tide change is about 3 feet on large days, leaving these pools only a few feet or inches deep. Despite their small size, tide pools are fascinating to explore, offering a glimpse into a temporary yet complex ecosystem that changes with the tides.

🔥 Adapting to Harsh Tide Pool Conditions

As the tide pools are cut off from the ocean, the sun heats the water, causing evaporation and increasing salinity. These conditions can be highly stressful for organisms. Yet, the plants and animals here have special adaptations that allow them to endure the extreme heat and saltiness, thriving in an otherwise inhospitable environment.

🐟 Life in Tide Pools: Small Fish and Survival

The tide pools, though not a coral reef, are home to small-bodied fish and algae-covered rock substrates. Many fish species are juveniles that eventually move to coral reefs, but some, like the blenny, spend their entire lives in these shallow waters. The fish must adapt to the fluctuating conditions of the tide pools.

🏞 Migration and Space in the Last Tide Pools

As the tide continues to drop and water evaporates, fish must migrate to the last remaining pools, where space becomes scarce. The competition for survival intensifies as they crowd into the limited habitat, waiting for the tide to replenish the water. The incoming tide signals the end of the low tide phase and the need for visitors to leave before the waves return.

Keywords

💡Marine environment

The marine environment refers to the various ecosystems and habitats within oceans and seas. In the video, it highlights the challenges that organisms face in these environments, particularly in adapting to extreme conditions like salinity, temperature fluctuations, and wave energy. The organisms living here must have special adaptations to survive.

💡Intertidal zone

The intertidal zone is the area between the lowest low tide and the highest high tide. This part of the marine world is one of the most challenging environments for organisms due to constant exposure to changing conditions like temperature, salinity, and wave action. The video emphasizes the harshness of this zone and how only certain plants and animals are adapted to survive here.

💡Salinity

Salinity refers to the amount of salt dissolved in water. In the intertidal zone, salinity can fluctuate greatly due to the evaporation of water when the tide is low, increasing the salt concentration. The organisms living in tide pools need to adapt to this high salinity to survive, as explained in the video.

💡Temperature fluctuations

Temperature fluctuations refer to the rapid changes in temperature that occur in the intertidal zone as the tide rises and falls. During low tide, tide pools are exposed to the sun, causing the water to heat up, which creates stressful conditions for the organisms living there. This concept is crucial for understanding the difficulties of survival in these environments.

💡Wave energy

Wave energy refers to the relentless force of waves that constantly hit the intertidal zone. Organisms living in this area have to endure the impact of waves, which makes survival more challenging. The video mentions that this energy is a major factor that makes the intertidal zone one of the harshest marine environments.

💡Tide pools

Tide pools are small pools of seawater that form in the intertidal zone when the tide goes out. These pools can vary in depth and are home to a variety of organisms that can withstand extreme conditions such as high salinity and temperature. The video describes how tide pools offer a fascinating glimpse into marine life, but also pose significant challenges to the organisms that inhabit them.

💡Coral reef

Coral reefs are marine ecosystems made up of coral structures, which are not well-suited to the extreme conditions of tide pools. The video highlights that while corals thrive in stable marine environments, they cannot handle the salinity and temperature fluctuations of tide pools, where the substrate is often bare rock or algae-covered instead.

💡Blenny

A blenny is a type of small fish that lives in tide pools. Unlike many other species that only use tide pools as a temporary habitat during their juvenile stage, the blenny spends its entire life in these pools. The video uses the blenny as an example of how some organisms have adapted to survive in this harsh environment throughout their lives.

💡Migration

In the context of the video, migration refers to the movement of fish within tide pools as the available water evaporates and habitats dry up. As water levels drop, fish must relocate to the last remaining pools of water, which are scarce, making space a premium for survival until the tide returns.

💡Adaptations

Adaptations are the physical or behavioral traits that organisms develop to survive in specific environments. In the video, organisms living in the intertidal zone and tide pools have adaptations that allow them to cope with the harsh conditions such as extreme salinity, heat, and the pounding force of waves. Without these adaptations, survival in this environment would be impossible.

Highlights

Marine environments present unique challenges for organisms to survive.

The intertidal zone is one of the most challenging areas of the marine world, located between the lowest low tide and highest high tide.

Organisms in the intertidal zone face extreme fluctuations in salinity, temperature, and wave energy.

Tide pools form when the tide recedes, leaving behind small water bodies in the intertidal zone.

In Hawaii, the tidal change is typically about 3 feet, creating shallow tide pools that are only a few inches to a few feet deep.

Tide pools are subjected to sun exposure, leading to water evaporation and increased salinity, which can stress organisms.

Corals cannot survive in tide pools due to extreme conditions, and the bottom of the tide pool is usually bare rock or algae-covered.

Small-bodied fish species, including juveniles and adult blennies, are capable of living in tide pools.

Juvenile fish often use tide pools as a temporary habitat before migrating to coral reefs as they grow larger.

As the tide pool water evaporates, the available habitat shrinks, concentrating the fish into smaller areas.

Space becomes scarce during low tide, leading to competition among fish for the remaining available habitat.

The incoming tide eventually replenishes the water in the tide pools, providing relief to the organisms.

Humans must leave the tide pool area before the incoming tide brings strong waves that could be dangerous.

Tide pools offer a unique ecosystem to explore, different from coral reefs, and support a variety of species adapted to extreme conditions.

The intertidal zone demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of marine organisms in a harsh environment.

Transcripts

for an animal to survive in a marine

environment it's always a

challenge but what part of the Marine

World presents the most challenging

conditions one of the areas that surely

has to top anybody's list is the

intertitle the intertitle is the area

between the lowest low tide and the

highest high

tide the conditions here are some of the

harshest of all Marine environments

the organisms that live in the

intertitle are subjected to Wild

fluctuations in salinity temperature and

of course they're constantly punished by

Relentless wave

energy the challenges that the plants

and animals here face are unlike those

of any other part of the Marine World

When the tide goes out we're able to

access the inner tidal from the shore

this area that's underwat during a high

tide becomes exposed and What's Left

Behind are tide

pools here in Hawaii the tide change is

only about 3 feet on a really big day

that means that the tide pools here are

just a few feet and sometimes only a few

inches deep nevertheless they remain

fascinating places to

explore as soon as the tide goes low

enough that a tide pool is cut off from

the ocean the sun begins to heat the

water and it starts to

evaporate as it evaporates the salinity

or saltiness of the water increases this

is really stressful to most organisms

and the plants and animals that live

here have to have adaptations that allow

them to tolerate extremely salty and hot

conditions the first thing you notice in

these tide pools is that it's not a

coral reef corals can't handle these

types of conditions very well and the

substrate or the bottom of the tide pool

is generally either bare rock or is

covered with

algae amazingly there are fish that can

live in these tide

fools obviously they have to be small

bodied fishes and many of them are

juveniles of species that when they grow

larger will leave the tide poool areas

and live on the coral reef

other species like this blenny will

spend its entire adult life inside the

tide

pool towards the end of the low tide a

lot of the water in the tide pools has

evaporated and a lot of the available

habitat for the fishes has dried

up this causes many migrations within

the tide pools into the last remaining

available habitat and Space is really at

a premium at this

point the fish all get concentrated in

in the last last remaining tide pools

and this is where they have to stay

until the incoming tide replenishes the

water

supply unfortunately for us the incoming

tide means it's time to leave the area

before we get pummeled by the waves too

e