Grazing Animals
Grazing animals are also another factor causing a regular variation in algal communities. Many invertebrates and some fishes feed on attached algae.
Cyanophytes are usually avoided and may even be poisonous, but great quantities of other algae may be consumed quite rapidly. lt is often quite possible to observe cleared patches of stone surfaces around Caddis worms, snails and limpets, which have presumably been caused by the grazing of these animals.
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