Nature nominee

Jersey's huge tidal range means that after big spring tides, seaweed gets stranded at the high water mark and in rock pools. Over the next few days, the seaweed starts to decompose and bacterial colonies form in the water and on sand. If it rains, then the bacteria gets washed away, but if it stays dry, then these colonies develop into living landscapes, forming their own cosmologies, their own ecosystems. Dead flies accumulate. Globules detach into galaxy clusters. Sliding deltas move slowly downhill. The tension is between the immense resilience of life in general, set against the staggering fragility of the individual bacterial colonies.