Muestreo cuantitativo de comunidades intermareales de Chile central

摘要: Most studies on Chilean intertidal communities are qualitative or semiquantitative descriptions of species associations and zonation patterns. Although quantitative studies allow a finer understanding of structure and organization of intertidal communities they have been performed only unfrequently in Chile. This review is primarily concerned with some of the problems involved in applying quantitative sampling to intertidal organisms. Major problems in this field are the recognition of boundaries of the intertidal communities, the use of the minimal area concept in these habitats, the determination of quadrat and sample size and selection of the attributes to be measured in the population. Results so far gathered in several different habitats do not support the currently accepted hypothesis on the uniformity of zonation patterns supposed for most of the coast of northern and central Chile.