The organism that I will be studying is the barnacle (Chthamalus stellatus).
I will choose three locations along the environmental gradient. The first being the first drainage site and presence of sea wall, the second will be the second drainage site with no sea wall, and the third will be the elevated rock furthest from the sea wall with no drainage site (Figure 4).
There were not many barnacles present near the first location (sea wall and drainage site), I located two large rocks containing barnacles directly south of the first drainage site. Barnacles in this location were grey in colour, small, sporadically distributed along the rock (less dense), white/grey in colour, present near the bottom of the rock with no growth on the top half of the rock.
Figure 1. Two rocks directly south of the first location (from trip#1).
At the second site (drainage site no sea wall), there were more barnacles observed compared to the first site. The barnacles here were both brown and white in colour, a wide range of size/shape but generally were large (both width and height) compared to those of the previous sites. This area was the first area to show the growth of brown and green seaweed on the rocks. There was growth all over the rocks of this area and there was less “free” space along the rock (denser).
Figure 2. Rocks located directly south of location 2 with two different views.
The barnacles on the elevated rock (most north) of the first site (no drainage or sea wall) were the most abundant of all the sites. They were grey/white in colour, generally large, densely spread out along the rocks and there was growth on all regions of the rock. There was also an abundance of green and brown algae.
Figure 3. Barnacles and algae located at location 3. Two different views of barnacles present at this location (right, center) and the large abundance of brown algae (right).
Hypothesis: The presence of either drainage sites and/or sea wall in McNeill Bay influence barnacle abundance.
Prediction: The abundance of barnacles will be highest when furthest from the drain sites and the sea wall.
One response variable would be the number of barnacles observed = this would be continuous as it can be measured on a numerical scale.
A predictor variable would be the presence or absence of either the drainage site or sea wall = categorical (+sea wall/drainage, +drainage, -/- sea wall/drainage).
Figure 4. Journal for this trip to McNeill Bay.