Whats the role of littorina littorea in shaping the community in a tide pool?
Pools high in the intertidal heat up rapidly and become hyper saline in the summer and may become hypotonic due to rains and freeze in the winter. These physical stresses limit the types of organisms that can live in these pools. Pools at lower elevations are frequently flooded by tides, which decreases these physical fluctuations. Large pools at lower elevations may even be thermally and osmotically stable enough to support sea urchins, which can limit fleshy algae, leading to community of crustose algae and animals similar to that found in subtidal habitats (Bertness 1999). Algal abundance in tide pools is strongly influenced by herbivores. The most abundant and important herbivore in the mid and low intertidal zones along the rocky shores of New England is the periwinkle snail Littorina littorea (Menge 1975) which is an invasive species that came from Europe (Bertness 1999). L. littorea is a habitat generalist found in any shore where there is some hard substrate in New England. It
