Man Made

The Marine organisms are very adaptable and soon make use of any structure Man places in the sea. These structures could be Harbours, Oil rigs, Ships (both floating and ship wrecks). All these structures provide a hard surface for Marine animals and plants to attach to. These in turn attract mobile organisms and within a short period of time a community develops around the structure.

Man-made harbour walls are an excellent example of how nature uses these structures to its advantage, due to their location they are also easily accessible to anyone interested in the Marine environment.

   

Photograph Location: Gorran Haven, Cornwall. Great Britain

In the two photographs above a wide variety of Marine life can be seen attached to the harbour wall. (The photograph on the right is a close up of the Harbour wall). The two most common groups of species found in this environment are barnacles and limpets along with a number of different seaweed's (Macro-algae)

The wooden sea defences of the sandy shore are soon colonised by various types of seaweed (Macro-algae) and smaller filamentous green algae which can be very slippery underfoot.

In amongst the algal fronds at low tide can be found limpets, periwinkles (slow moving). and other sessile organisms (non moving) including barnacles although these are soon smothered by the seaweed's. Faster mobile animals such as small juvenile crabs can sometimes be found hiding in the cracks in the wood and amongst large clumps of seaweed.

Photograph location: Felixstowe Beach, Suffolk UK

Any marine life found on these structures have to have some form of attachment mechanism to  prevent them from being swept away by the constant wave action. In addition these marine organism the ability to survive in the open air as they are exposed to the air on a regular basis for long periods of time due to the tidal flow.