The Great Barrier Beach Field Guide

About the Book

The publication The Great Barrier Beach Field Guide is the result of several years of beach surveys of the Northeast Coast, Long Island, New York, New Jersey, New England, and the coastline of North and South Carolina. “In its natural state, the barrier beach is a fascinating mixture of opposites: high and low elevations, wet and dry, hot and cold, sterile and fertile, windblown and sheltered.” It is the combination of these factors that, with a strip of land varying in width from a few thousand feet to a few hundred or less, have produced several distinct zones of flora distribution. Considering the mixture of abiotic elements of the various zones, the flora that occupy a zone must be genetically equipped to adapt or be replaced by a genetically equipped species. The environment is the selecting agent; it determines and selects the most genetically equipped to survive and perpetuate.

About the Author

Anthony Minardi is a marine biologist and educator. He has studied and published on the subject for more than forty years, with a particular focus on northeast coast of the United States. Mr. Minardi is the former chair of the science department of East Hampton High School, New York. He has also been assistant professor of biology at Southampton College, Chapman College, and Syracuse University. As part of his doctoral research, Mr. Minardi performed field and laboratory studies at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts. Mr. Minardi was named Outstanding Biology Teacher (New York State) in 1986.