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Discovering Fire Island The Young Naturalist's Guide to the World of the Barrier Beact Discovering Fire Island Fire Island National Seashore was estab­ The Young Naturalist's Guide to the lished to preserve the plant-and-animal communities ot one of the few relatively World of the Barrier Beach unspoiled barrier beaches on our Atlantic coast. Within the boundaries ot the National Seashore, the National Park Service not only provides for a variety of recreational activities but protects the natural resource as an outdoor laboratory for the study of geology, biology, and ecology. Except for those living things ofiicially authorized for harvesting tfish, clams, etc.), and nonliving things such as shells and other beach wrack, do not remove anything from the park without permission. by Bill Perry drawings by Michael Graham and Missy Lipsett Division of Publications National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1978 Contents 1 A Ramble Across the Barrier Island Explorations 6 Hippocampus 3 A Living Fossil: I 13 Birth of a Barrier Beach 23 Beachcombers All: I 19 How to Be a Beachcomber 31 Be a Scavenger: G, I, T 21 Your Beachcombing Kit 43 Sunlight and Sand: I 24 Amphipods 54 Osmosis: G, I 26 Mole Crabs 56 Profiling a Community: I, G 29 Razor Clams 58 Comparing Communities: A, I, T 33 After the Storm 74 Backyard Ecology: I, G, T, Y 35 Up and Down in the Dune and Swale Zone 80 The Eelgrass Microhabitat: I 38 What's in a Name? 82 The Web of Life: G, I, A, T 44 Natural Communities 50 Food Chains Maps and Diagrams 53 Mysteries of the Maritime Forest 14 The Middle Atlantic Coast 61 Ecosystem 16 The Origins of Fire Island 63 Wet Your Feet in the Salt Marsh 46 Cross-section of Fire Island 65 What Good is a Salt Marsh? 60 The Maritime Forest 69 Natural Succession 73 Food Web of the Salt Marsh 77 Who's Who in the Zostera Community 78 The Zostera Community 86 The Eelgrass Blight 88 Niches 90 Glossary 92 Reading List ii Explorations Key: Acknowledgements A: For advanced ecology Thanks are due the following persons who helped in students the preparation of this book: Superintendents James W. I: Individual explorations Godbolt and Richard W. Marks of Fire Island National G: Group explorations—direct Seashore; Interpretive Specialists Pat Crosland and supervision of a teacher or Neal R. Bullington; numerous members of the park staff leader required for beginners who provided information and transportation; and or younger students. William H. Amos, who reviewed the manuscript and T: Team explorations—2 to 6 gave much valuable advice. students or a family Y: Investigations to be carried on Photo Credits at intervals over a period of at William H. Amos: pp. 37, 43, 47, 78, 79; Richard Frear: least one year, or during the pp. iv, 8, 18, 28, 55, 67, 76; Luther C. Goldman: p. 75; same season in successive Bill Perry; pp. 4, 5, 9,12, 15, 21, 32, 34, 40, 41, 46, 47, years. 48, 49, 51, 52, 62, 64; Rex Schmidt: p. 2. Hi A Ramble Across the Barrier Island Across Great South Bay, the sun appears about to sink into the low mass of Long Island. You are wading among patches of eelgrass in the warm, shallow water off the north shore of Fire Island. Dipnet in hand, you are seeking whatever kind of animal life you can cap­ ture. The fingersize fish darting about your legs are too fast. But wouldn't it be a thrill to see a sea horse? Your chances are slim. This animal is a slow swimmer, but it is not abundant, and it is well camouflaged in its eelgrass-jungle habitat. You do manage to catch a few crabs, dig up one clam with your toes, and scoop a number of small crustaceans into your fine-mesh net. Suddenly an enormous horseshoe-crab comes right toward you, swimming just under the surface and veer­ ing to one side as it is about to bump your legs. Ex­ citedly, you grab it by the long tail spine, drag it to the beach, and turn it over for a close look. What a curious creature! As it attempts to right itself with its tail, you probe between the leaflike "book gills" on its underside. There you find just what you're looking for: a large white flatworm, a permanent guest of the horse­ shoe-crab, living on the gills with no evident harm to the host. Turning the big invertebrate right-side up, you watch it return to the water. How does it find its way so easily? You didn't notice any eyes. 1 The flatworm, Bdelloura (don't pro­ nounce the "B"), lives on the gills of the horseshoe-crab. As the horseshoe-crab swims away, your thoughts wander back in time—for you have just had a brush with the world of 200 million years ago, when such marine monsters as Ichthyosaurus ruled the seas, long before the great predatory dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus, appeared on land. This horseshoe-shaped animal with­ out a backbone but with a tanklike outside armor has lived in Earth's seas virtually unchanged since that era. No wonder it is called a living fossil! On the narrow beach you discover that the tide, reced­ ing while you foraged in the bay, has deposited a wealth of beachcomber's treasure on the sand. Here's an assortment of flotsam, jetsam, and beach wrack that The horseshoe-crab, Limulus polyphe- could occupy you for hours. Besides a few dead horse­ mus, is actually an arachnid, related to shoe-crabs and many shed exoskeletons, there are spiders, ticks, scorpions, and daddy- long-legs. This non-crab plows the scallop shells, seaweeds of various shades of brown muddy and sandy bottoms in search of and red, assorted driftwood, various items discarded the burrowing animals upon which it from boats, and an abundance of plastic bottles and feeds. In early summer it lays its eggs in the sand along the shore. Horseshoe- other ugly reminders that civilization is close by. crabs often carry a bevy of passengers —permanent guests, not hitchhikers— More interesting to you right now is a set of hoofprints including sea lettuce, barnacles, boat snails, tube worms, limpets, and flat- running along the high-tide line. A deer has chosen the worms. Limulus is valuable to science: easy travel route; passage down the middle of this long, blood is drawn from living specimens narrow, roadless island is made difficult by dense (without killing them) and used in medi­ thickets of trees and shrubs. You decide to follow the cal diagnosis. Return the horseshoe-crab unharmed to its habitat. deer tracks to see if they'll lead to an island crossing. The American goosefish, Lophius ameri- canus, la so soft-bodied that when it is stranded on the shore its flat body be­ comes even flatter. It is one of the angler fishes, and although it preys on a wide variety of marine animal life it sometimes lies in wait in the eelgrass and gulps down fish that approach its lure—a flap of skin at the tip of the spine over its great mouth. A Living Fossil: I A little way along the beach you come to the skeleton Examine the external anatomy of of a goosefish, more than a meter long and almost as Limulus, the horseshoe-crab. You wide. You can well believe the account of a goosefish will notice that it resembles the hoof that was found to contain the bodies of seven ducks! of a horse rather than a horseshoe; Nearly all gaping mouth, with a formidable array of probably it was originally named teeth, it seems a monster indeed. But there is a natural "horsefoot-crab." Locate the eyes. function for each of its parts, including the great mouth. How many are there? How does Perhaps to a goosefish you would appear as grotesque. their position relate to Limulus' feeding habits? Study the book gills There is still flesh and skin adhering to the bones and and swimming appendages. (Later, skull of the goosefish, and it emits a putrid odor. But find a diagram of the gillbooks of a thinking that the skeleton would make a great conver­ spider for comparison. And see if sation piece for your bedroom, you drag it to the upper you can find out how Limulus, which beach to leave for the gulls, grackles, and scavenging has no jaws, chews its food.) invertebrates to clean up. You can return for your specimen in a few days. Examine the exoskeleton. Can you find the opening through which the Now the deer tracks turn inland, following a path horseshoe-crab emerged from its through the salt marsh that separates the bay and the outgrown armor? Except for this slit forest. Perhaps this will lead to the ocean beach. Fol­ around the front margin, your speci­ lowing the trail, you pass first through a ten-meter-wide men will be a complete and accu­ forest of reeds that tower high above you with large, rate representation of the exterior of feathery tips waving gracefully in the evening breeze. the animal. Beyond this zone of tall grasses is a band of ankle-high, odd-looking plants with fleshy stalks and without no­ ticeable leaves or flowers. They look much like the 3 primitive horsetails—the plants your pioneer forebears called "scouring rushes" and used for cleaning pots. The glasswort zone merges eventually into a growth of head-high bullrushes; a little farther on the bullrushes mix with high shrubs whose big, pinkish blossoms remind you of the hibiscus growing back home in the front yard.

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