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Research theme 7: Do Littorina snails have a site preference within the intertidal zone?

Intertidal populations are exposed to highly dynamic and ever changing conditions, which result in having organisms with specialised adaptations and bizarre physiological behaviours. Littorina saxatilis snails are commonly found in European mid-intertidal rocky shore areas where they are exposed to wave action, sun, drastic salinity and temperature changes, and numerous other oceanographic events. We observed that within their range of zonation we can distinguish 3 zones: dry, splash and wet. These 3 zones are highly dissimilar in many ways including availability of resources, physical and hydrodynamic forces and many more, which made us question whether the individuals made a choice between these zones or they would move around freely between them. To study this we will be doing a 24 hour observation of a site that exhibits all 3 zones via a timelapse and along with it we will do continuous measuring of physical parameters with the help of a sensor buoy we will design and construct with Arduino technology. Parallel to the observations we will also run experiments in the lab where we will replicate this 3-zone microclimate and test the site selection and preferences of the snails. We expect that snails in the laboratory conditions will migrate back to their prefered zones, i.e. the zones in which we found them in the wild.

Contributors: 

  • Alejandra Elisa Hernández Magaña 
  • Ines Fournon Berodia 
  • Lukas Marx 
  • Camille Kowalski 
  • Robyn Joanne Murdoch 


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