During the six-month period of July through December, 1966,
a study of animals inhabiting laminarian holdfasts in Yaquina Bay,
Oregon, was carried out to determine what animals live in this habitat
and to gain some idea of the factors which influence their presence
and distribution. This study deals with yet another facet of the
ecology of this Oregon estuary, which has been the object of intensive
biological, geological, and hydrographic studies for the past several
years.
Fifty samples were collected and analyzed and found to contain a
total of 6,687 individuals representing 99 taxa. Identification was
carried to species as far as possible although several individuals
were juvenile or incomplete and so could be determined only to higher
taxonomic levels. Some species showed limited distributions, but
most species were widespread spatially and seasonally. The species
composition of the samples at a given location was quite constant
throughout the period of sampling, but at each time of sampling it
varied markedly among different locations in the bay. Since the
animals found in holdfasts also occurred in other situations offering
shelter and evidently readily moved from one holdfast to another,
it was impossible to define any unique holdfast community.
When the animals taken were lumped by group, the most
numerous were polychaetes, which comprised twenty-eight percent
of all of the individuals. Other groups present in relatively large
numbers were pelecypods, nematodes, cirripedes, and gastropods.
There have been no other studies of holdfasts-inhabiting
animals in estuaries reported from the Pacific coast, so the results
found were difficult to compare with other findings. Other surveys
have been made on this coast which dealt with animals living in
holdfasts in oceanic situations, and the results of the present study
were somewhat comparable to them. / Graduation date: 1967
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28385 |
| Date | 11 May 1967 |
| Creators | Markham, John Charles |
| Contributors | Frolander, Herbert F. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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