The supralittoral zone, also known as the splash zone, spray zone or the supratidal zone, sometimes also referred to as the white zone, is the area above the spring high
tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another.
Tide tables ...
line, on
coastlines and
estuaries
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...
, that is regularly splashed, but not submerged by ocean water. Seawater penetrates these elevated areas only during storms with high tides.
[Thurman et al., p. 512.]
Organisms here must cope also with exposure to air, fresh water from rain, cold, heat and
predation
Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...
by land animals and seabirds. At the top of this area, patches of dark
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...
s can appear as crusts on rocks. Some types of
periwinkles,
Neritidae
Neritidae, common name the nerites, is a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic Family (biology), family of small to medium-sized saltwater and freshwater snails which have a gill and a distinctive Operculum (gastropod), operculum.
MolluscaBase eds. (202 ...
and detritus feeding
Isopod
Isopoda is an Order (biology), order of crustaceans. Members of this group are called isopods and include both Aquatic animal, aquatic species and Terrestrial animal, terrestrial species such as woodlice. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons ...
a commonly inhabit the lower supralittoral.
[Yip and Madl]
See also
*
Littoral zone
The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely flood ...
*
Sublittoral zone
The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth.
From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminated ...
Notes
References
* Thurman H.V. and Trujillo A.P. 1993.''Essentials of Oceanography''.Upper Saddle River, NJ:Prentice Hall
* Yip, Maricela and Madl, Pierre (1999
''Littoral''University of Salzburg
The University of Salzburg (, ), also known as the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (''Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg'', PLUS), is an Austrian public university in Salzburg, Salzburg municipality, Salzburg (federal state), Salzburg State, ...
.
Coastal geography
Oceanographical terminology
{{Ecology-stub