Sea otters maintain the balance of kelp forest ecosystems by controlling populations of sea urchins, which are voracious kelp grazers. Since 2014, however, California's kelp forests have declined ...

Sea otters maintain the balance of kelp forest ecosystems by controlling populations of sea urchins, which are voracious kelp grazers. Since 2014, however, California's kelp forests have declined ...

A southern sea otter with a purple sea urchin in Monterey Bay, California. (Credit: Morgan Rector) (CN) — The kelp forests along the coast of California have been under attack by purple sea urchins, ...

Meanwhile, in Central California, with the presence of otters, kelp forests have increased by 56 percent. ... the red sea urchin commercial fishery is a big part of many livelihoods.

So the otters are ignoring the urchin barrens and going after the nutritionally profitable urchins in the kelp forest.” By doing this, the sea otters are helping to maintain those patches of ...

The kelp forests in the north also lack an urchin predator common farther south: sea otters. Those sea otters are what’s providing a glimmer of hope in Monterey Bay.

Sea Otters Maintain Remnants of Healthy Kelp Forest Amid Sea Urchin Barrens Mar. 8, 2021 — Sea otters maintain the balance of kelp forest ecosystems by controlling populations of sea urchins ...

Josh Smith, in an undated photo, has been researching how sea otters are defending Monterey Bay’s kelp forest since 2015. He co-authored a paper that was published March 8 in Proceedings of the ...

Sea otters are keystone species in kelp forests. Kelp forests rely on the top-down pressure sea otters exert via predation on sea urchins. By controlling the sea urchin population, they help ...

When sea otters were reintroduced along the coastlines of islands in Southern California and British Columbia, researchers saw kelp forests return to areas that were destroyed by sea urchins. But ...

Kelp forests absorb carbon dioxide – in fact, kelp forests can absorb 12 times more carbon dioxide when otters are eating urchins than when the urchin population destroys the kelp forest.

A healthy forest of giant kelp, in Monterey Bay. (Photo by Michael Langhans) In this urchin barren in Monterey Bay, grazing by purple sea urchins has removed kelp and other algae from the rocky reef. ...