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Organisms of marine rocky shores are exposed to physical stress from abiotic factors, such as temperature, salinity and wave action. These factors vary over compressed temporal and spatial scales, producing an exceedingly heterogeneous habitat with steep gradients of selection, and it seems likely that this has a strong influence on the evolution of populations of rocky shore organisms. With the periwinkles (genus Littorina) as a model group, I review strategies for coping with small-scale heterogeneous environments and what implications these strategies have on the evolution of these species. Some species of Littorina have long-lived pelagic larvae and sites of various habitats are thus recruited from a common gene pool. This largely prevents local adaptation but minor adjustments are possible through a plastic phenotype. Other species of the genus are directly developing with no larval dispersal and among …