| Changes in rocky intertidal populations at Little Corona del Mar, California, are described over fifty years using interviews, unpublished specimen and species lists, and published abundance data. Extensive changes in macrophyte and macroinvertebrate populations occurred between 1945 and the mid-1970s and continued at a slower rate, through the 1990s. Large gastropods, filter-feeding sponges, tunicates, bryozoans, and predatory nudibranchs declined while smaller, mobile invertebrates, and colonial tubeworms are now more abundant. These changes paralleled reductions in larger, canopy-forming macrophytes and increases in low-profile, disturbance-resistant algae, transforming Little Corona del Mar into a different intertidal community compared to what it used to be. |
