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Humans are highly dependent on intertidal habitats for food and raw materials, and over 50% of humans live within 100 km of the coast. Therefore, intertidal habitats are greatly influenced by human impacts to both ocean and land habitats. Some of the conservation issues associated with intertidal habitats and at the head of the agendas of managers and intertidal ecologists are:
1. Climate change: Intertidal species are challenged by several of the effects of global climate change, including increased temperatures, sea level rise, and increased storminess. Ultimately, it has been predicted that the distributions and numbers of species will shift depending on their abilities to adapt (quickly!) to these new environmental conditions. Due to the global scale of this issue, scientists are mainly working to understand and predict possible changes to intertidal habitats.
2. Invasive species: Invasive species are especially prevalent in intertidal areas with high volumes of shipping traffic, such as large estuaries, because of the transport of non-native species in ballast water. San Francisco Bay, in which an invasive Spartina cordgrass from the east coast is currently transforming mudflat communities into Spartina meadows, is among the most invaded estuaries in the world. Conservation efforts are focused on trying to eradicate some species (like Spartina) in their non-native habitats as well as preventing further species introductions (e.g. by controlling methods of ballast water uptake and release).
3. Marine protected areas: Many intertidal areas are lightly to heavily exploited by humans for food gathering (e.g. clam digging in soft-sediment habitats and snail, mussel, and algal collecting in rocky intertidal habitats). In some locations, marine protected areas have been established where no collecting is permitted. The benefits of protected areas may spill over to positively impact adjacent unprotected areas. For example, a greater number of larger egg capsules of the edible snail Concholepus in protected vs. non-protected areas in Chile indicates that these protected areas may help replenish snail stocks in areas open to harvesting. The degree to which collecting is regulated by law differs with the species and habitat.
Read more about this topic: Intertidal Ecology
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