ROCKY SHORES are one of the most important habitats of marine environment in coastal areas. They host marine organisms including seaweeds because of existence of strong and stable substrate for their growths.Intertidal ROCKY SHORES are a prominent feature on coastal areas of Qeshm Island located at the northern part of Strait of Hormuz. In order to study biomass of seaweeds on ROCKY intertidalflats of this island, four stations in the south and one station in the northern part of the island were selected. Sampling was done for two periods, summer and winter. It was done during the low spring tide using a quadrate thrown manually and randomly at three times at upper, middle and lower parts of theflats with three replicates. Altogether 73 species of algae were collected and identified. These include 20 Chlorophyta, 10 Phaeophyta and 43 Rhodophyta. The maximum and minimum algal biomass of all stations was recorded in S4 station (117 g.m-2) and S5 station (24 g.m-2) with significant difference between the two stations (P<0.05). Also, the maximum algal biomass was observed for red algae (126g.m-2).

In this study molecular identification of four species of Gastropoda have been studied based on mitochondrial genes, COI and 16S rRNA in the present work for the first time in the northern ROCKY coastal zones of Persian Gulf during years 2013 and 2014. Planaxis sulcatus، Cerithidea cingulata، Siphonaria savignyi and Onchidium peronii Identified. After morphological identification, DNA extraction, amplifying partial of cytochrome oxidase COI and 16S rRNA and sequencing procedure were done in the laboratory. In this study 6 COI and 3 16S rRNA sequencing belonging to these species were measured and reported for the first time. Also, phylogeny analyses with drawing phylogeny trees of Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony were done using MEGA6 and PAUP softwares. The result showed that molecular and morphological studies have the same results for this species. Also sequences from both COI and 16S rRNA did not show difference in identification and topology of phylogeny trees.

Neritas are among the most dominant groups of Gastropoda in the Persian Gulf. There is no previous study in relation to molecular and phylogeny of Neritas in the study area. The molecular identification of Nerita species have been studied for the first time in the northern ROCKY coastal zones of Persian Gulf during 2013 and 2014. After morphological identifications of species, DNA extraction, amplifying partial of cytochrome oxidase COI and 16S rRNA and sequencing procedure were done in the laboratory. In this study, 6 COI and 6 16S rRNA sequences, belonging to 3 species, were obtained. Also, phylogeny analyses with drawing phylogeny trees of Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian were done using MEGA6 and BEAST softwares. Morphological and molecular identification results were similar for 2 species and dissimilar for one species. This discrepancy shows that a combination of morphological and molecular studies is more reliable for species identification than either of them solely. The results also showed that Nerita species are monophyletic.

To study the population structure of Decapods in the Intertidal Zone of Bushehr ROCKY SHORES, some random sample collection from four ROCKY and rubble SHORES of Bushehr were done using a 50×50 quadrates sampling unit, in four successive seasons from autumn 2009 to summer 2010. Totally 8 species belonging to 5 family of Decapods were identified and counted. In the whole course of sample collection, the highest frequency rate belongs to Petrolisthes Rufescence species with 51%, pagurus sp. species with 22%, Metapograpsus maculates with 7%, pilimnus sp. with 6.5%, Alpheus lobidens shrimp with 3% and other species with 10.5% ranked next. The results show a drop in frequency and diversity in cold seasons and the most important factor of those changes is temperature changes. Place frequency of Decapods showed that in sites of Lian and Holeileh (C & D Stations) diversity of Decapods is more due to less pollution, less accessibility, and vast and complex bed.

ROCKY SHORES are one of the most important habitats of marine environment in coastal areas. This study was done in 2010-2011 to investigate the diversity of true crabs in intertidal ROCKY SHORES of Qeshm island.Samples were collected from intertidal zones during the low-tide at 5 stations. The specimens werefixed in 70% Etanol and transferred to laboratory for identification. Altogether, 15 crab species belonging to 8 families and 14 genus were identified.4 species were from Portunidae, 3 species from Eriphiidae, 2 species from Majidae, 2 species from Grapsidae were identified. The others families including Euryplacidae, Leucociidae, Pilumnidae and Xanthidae families have the lowest species richness with only 1 species per family. Portunidae family with 4 species in intertidal zone had the highest species richness amongst studied stations.3 species of Eriphia smithi from Eriphiidae family, Leptodius exaratus from Xanthidae family and Thalamita crenata from Portunidae family were present at all three intertidal zones (High tide, Mid tide and Low tide).

In this study concentration of Lead in water, sediment, hard and soft tissue of the gastropod, Turbo coronatus and algae, in winter and summer of 2011 were analyzed. There were four stations in Kish Island including the Greek ship, Arab market, seda va sima, and green tree. Samples were digested using MOOPAM protocol with atomic absorption in three replicates. The results indicated that the concentration of Lead in the four stations in soft tissue were 2.57 ppb, 2.02 ppb, hard tissue 2.28ppb, 1.10ppb, Algae 3.51ppb, 2.15ppb, sediment 2.45ppb, 1.73ppb and in Water<10ppb in winter and summer respectively. The concentrations of Lead were less than the WHO world standard. There were no significant differences between the amount of Lead in the samples of the two seasons and also among the stations.

The most important primary producers of ROCKY SHORES are macroalgae. The present study investigated thetemporal–spatial changes, the percentage of coverage and the influence of abiotic factors on macroalgae on ROCKY SHORES of southern Caspian Sea. Ten sampling stations were selected in the natural and artificial ROCKY SHORES from Astara to Babolsar. Sampling lasted for one year and took place every 2 months from September 2013 to July 2014 using a 50×50 quadrate sampler. Epibenthic macroalgae consisted of 2 genus, Cladophora and Entromorpha, from green algae and one genus, Laurenica, from red algae. The average water temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen and water conductivity were 16.48oC, 9.87ppt, 8.27, 9.89 mg/l and 16.52 m/s, respectively. According to the results, the maximum algalcoverage was observed in September (70.50 %) and the minimum coverage was observed in January (21.50 %). Results of one-way ANOVA indicated that the mean of algal coverage in various months of theyear were significantly different (P<0.05). One-way ANOSIM ecosystem similarity test indicated that the coverage rates of the stations were homologous and similar. The results also showed that temperature hasa significant effect on macroalgae coverage ratio on ROCKY SHORES in the southern Caspian Sea.

Interspecies competition for space and the factors affecting competition are the questionable coastal ecological issues of interactions. Current study aims at studying the competition between two invasive species, Amphibalanus improvisus and Mytilaster lineatus, in ROCKY SHORES of Caspian basin. A field study has been conducted distance sampling on 10 stations, once every two month from September 2013 to July 2014, sampled with 15 × 15 cm quadrat, placed at random along natural and artificial ROCKY SHORES, from Astara to Babolsar. The algae percent cover has been estimated by 50 × 50 cm quadrate. The mean changes and average variability of water temperature, Salinity, dissolved oxygen and conductivity have been measured as follows: 16.480C, 9.87ppt, 9.89 ppm and16.52m/s. The results for A.improvisus and M.Linatus were as follows, respectively: average number, 404.75 and 327.33; percent cover 36.83 and 29.97; weight 17.8g and 26.47 g. According to tukey test, a meaningful difference is shown to exist among stations and the dominant of M.Lineatus was higher compared to A.imrovisusin stations No.3, 4, 6. Although the results of present study showed that the inter annual mean and standard deviation of algae percent cover was 37.75, the results of tukey test did not show a statistically significant difference between stations. The results of One-way ANOSIM test suggested that the stations No.3, 4, 5, 6 have the most habitat similarity and environmental factors affecting their distributions, and besides dominance over benthic, the existing competition for space among two species results in favor of bivalve, mostly.

A general description of distribution pattern of ROCKY shore gastropoda along the Hormuz Island coasts is given to provide the context for comparisons of distribution pattern of this intertidal organisms. In order to test if there was any variation in species distribution and abundance from upper to lower intertidal zone (littoral zone) along the entire ROCKY SHORES of the Hormuz Island, three main regions were studied from Summer 2005 to spring 2006 (west, south and south-east) and 3 transects were sampled in each region. At each one of the 9 transects the shore was levelled and a general qualitative description was made, which also aided stratification of subsequent quantitative sampling. An upper zone characterized by the presence of Planaxis sulcatus was found on most of the SHORES along the ROCKY shore of Hormuz Island. The midlittoral zone is essentially dominated by Planaxis sulcatus, Turbo cinereus and Morula granulata. The distribution pattern observed on the lower zone showed a similarity between ROCKY SHORES located in the Hormuz Island, where essentially dominated by Trochus sp.. It has also given important information on abundance and distribution of gastropoda that revealed seasonal distribution in ROCKY SHORES of the Hormuz Island. According to this results abundance of gastropoda was markedly lower in Summer comparing to Spring.