Crystal Beach

October 1, 2015
2:10 pm 82 degrees
partly cloudy 71% humidity
breezy; water salinity 29%

Crystal Beach

Panoramic view of pier at Crystal Beach

                 Today we met at Crystal Beach Florida a neighborhood park in north Pinellas County.  This beach is not highly managed like other more well-known beaches in the county similar to Clearwater Beach. The water was at or near high tide this day, as you can in the picture above the waves were pushing seawrack to the shore. Our mission here today was to identify the type flora and fauna in this estuary and determine if it was a productive estuary. 

     First we walked the pier gazing into the water looking for what we might see. We were all delighted to see a very large stingray it must have measured over 30 inches across. The water was fairly calm and clear. While scanning the water we saw horseshoe crabs, some solo other locked in a mating dance and fishes.  Gathering at the end of the pier we were broken down into three groups.

     Our group was to run a thirty meter transect line parallel with the beach just to the south of the pier and just to the west of the mangroves for ecological sampling. We performed a belt transect, took soil samples every three meters from the inside boundary of quadrat. We used a small net to filter out the sand to get a better look at what might have been in the soil. Our team was able to identify worms both red and white, small crabs almost invisible to the eye and mollusks like the fighting conch. Horseshoe crabs mating were continually swimming nearby. Schools of small fish were apparent and in abundance 

     Our assumptions are that this is a highly diverse area because of the grazing and detrital food webs which were verified by the worms and crabs we uncovered in our samples. The plants and sea grasses seemed healthy and abundant. We saw chelicerates, crustaceans, mollusks, vertebrates and invertebrates.  Red, black and white mangroves were packed on top of each other which is uncommon in a totally virgin environment. Using Simpson's Index of Diversity we determined our diversity was 0.89.79. This is a highly diverse region of Crystal Beach. The combination of living flora and fauna and the high number we recorded proves this estuary is highly productive. Using Simpson's Index of Diversity we calculated our diversity at 0.8979. This is a highly diverse region of Crystal Beach.

seawrack at the shoreline