The Distribution of Certain Benthonic Algae in Queen Charlotte Strait, 
British Columbia, in Relation to Some Environmental Factors 
Robert F. Scagel 1 
In comparison with the progress in our knowl- 
edge of most groups of plants — especially con- 
cerning their life histories and distributions — 
the advances made in marine phycology and 
marine ecology have been relatively slow. The 
limited access to living material or to the facil- 
ities to maintain the larger marine algae in the 
living condition for a prolonged period of time, 
the difficulties of collection-— -particularly in the 
subtidal zone — and the lack of any extensive 
direct economic importance until recent years 
have all contributed to this slow progress. How- 
ever, in spite of these difficulties there has been 
a considerable amount of interest in the marine 
algae, including a number of studies of their 
ecology. Although this interest has been fairly 
widespread in a number of countries, until re- 
cently there has been little activity in the field 
of marine ecology relating to the benthonic 
algae on the Pacific Coast of North America 
and nothing of a comprehensive nature has been 
published for this area. It is an anachronism 
that this should be so in a region which received 
such prominence some 50 years ago through 
the efforts of a pioneer in the field, the late 
William Albert Setchell (1893, 1917, 1935). 
Knowledge of the effect of temperature on 
the world-wide distribution of plants both hor- 
izontally and vertically had developed gradually 
over a period of many years. However, it was 
only during the last hundred years that the at- 
tention of phycologists was brought to a con- 
sideration of the reasons for the observed dis- 
tributions of the marine algae. The historical 
development of this trend of thought and in- 
vestigation has been reviewed by Setchell 
(1917). Starting over 50 years ago, through a 
series of papers from 1893 to 1935, Setchell 
made a noteworthy attempt to explain the 
world-wide distribution of marine algae, espe- 
1 Department of Biology and Botany, and Institute 
of Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 
Vancouver 8, Canada. Manuscript received March 31, 
I960. 
dally of members of the Laminariales on the 
Pacific Coast of North America, on the basis of 
latitudinal and seasonal temperature distribu- 
tions. The physical data available during this 
early period were limited, but many of the prin- 
ciples set forth by Setchell concerning the dis- 
tributions of marine algae are as sound now as 
when they were first proposed. Except for more 
precise knowledge of the physical and chemical 
factors of the environment and the distribu- 
tions of the algae concerned, much of Setchell’s 
ecological work can still be used as a good 
foundation for further study. Although it was 
largely a two-dimensional approach to the 
marine environment, Setchell’s work made a 
significant contribution to the development of 
marine algal ecology. 
Lamouroux (1825, 1826) had suggested the 
possibility that temperature stratification in the 
sea might account for the vertical distribution 
of the marine algae and had considered the 
effect of tides on intertidal zonations, but this 
trend to analyze the vertical distribution of the 
marine algae was not generally taken up in de- 
tail until much later. Coleman (1933) was one 
of the first to emphasize the use of tide levels 
to account for the vertical distribution of the 
marine algae in the intertidal zone. In a study 
in Oregon, on the Pacific Coast of the United 
States, Doty ( 1946) has given further evidence 
for the relationship between the vertical dis- 
tributions of marine algae and critical tide levels. 
A number of lists of marine algae have been 
published and attempts have been made not 
only to relate the floras of one area to another, 
such as that by Okamura (1926, 1932) in the 
North Pacific, but also to account in a general 
way for distributions on the basis of ocean cur- 
rents, such as that by Isaac (1935) in the area 
around South Africa and by Tokida (1954) in 
the region of northern Japan. However, there 
soon followed a decided shift to intertidal studies 
of regional areas, such as that by Feldmann 
(1937) in the Mediterranean and Chapman 
494 
