This book is the only manual of its kind to make its exercises applicable to all the diverse marine habitats of North America. The manual meets the needs of any introductory marine biology student, from the non-major to the prospective major with a background in the biological sciences. Each unit includes a broad range of exercises, so that instructors using the manual can select those exercises that best match the needs of their introductory course. The manual is also uniqe in providing extensively illustrated identification keys for three of the major marine lifeforms, allowing students to identify and classify organisms within the invertebrates, plankton, and fishes.

Unit 1. Temperature, Salinity, Density, and Dissolved Oxygen

I. Analytical Procedures
A. Determination of Salinity
B. Determination of Dissolved Oxygen
II. Applications of Termperature, Salinity, and Dissolved Oxygen Data

Unit 2. Marine Invertebrate Classification and Identification
Unit 3. Benthic Invertebrates
Unit 4. Benthic Meiofauna

A. Representatives of Meiofauna
B. Sediments and Interstitial Spaces
C. Meiofaunal Search

Unit 5. Aquatic Plants; Macroalgae and Sea Grasses

A. Morphology and Diversity of Macroscopic Marine Algae
B. Morphology and Diversity of Sea Grasses

Unit 6. Epibiota of Algae and Sea Grasses
Unit 7. Photosynthetic Pigments of Marine Macroalgae
Unit 8. Plankton

A. Representatives of the Plankton Community
B. Composition of the Plankton
C. Observation of Living Plankton
D. Quantitative Analysis of Plankton Sample

Unit 9. Fish Morphology and Diversity

A. External Morphology
B. Fish Diversity

Unit 10. Internal Anatomy of a Bony Fish
Unit 11. Fouling Communities

A. Qualitative Assessment of a Fouling Community
B. Quantitative Assessment of a Fouling Community

Unit 12. Sampling the Seashore

A. Pretrip Planning and Preparation
B. Suggested Field Projects and Exercises
C. Fundamental Ecological Observations

Unit 13. Offshore Sampling

A. Physical and Chemical Sampling
B. Biological Sampling

Appendices