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In Alaskan kelp forest ecosystems, sea otters are the keystone species that mediates this trophic cascade. In Southern California, kelp forests persist without sea otters and the control of herbivorous urchins is instead mediated by a suite of predators including lobsters and large fishes, such as the California sheephead.
The Giant kelp marine forests of south east Australia is a community extending from the ocean floor to the ocean surface, on a rocky substrate, and has a ‘forest-like’ structure with many organisms occupying its various layers, including pelagic and demersal fishes, sea birds, turtles and marine mammals in addition to the invertebrate ...
This "kelp highway hypothesis" suggested that highly productive kelp forests supported rich and diverse marine food webs in nearshore waters, including many types of fish, shellfish, birds, marine mammals, and seaweeds that were similar from Japan to California, Erlandson and his colleagues also argued that coastal kelp forests reduced wave ...
Macrocystis is a monospecific genus [3] of kelp (large brown algae) with all species now synonymous with Macrocystis pyrifera. It is commonly known as giant kelp or bladder kelp. This genus contains the largest of all the Phaeophyceae or brown algae. Macrocystis has pneumatocysts at the base of its blades.
Kelp forests are a variation of rocky reefs, as the kelp requires a fairly strong and stable substrate which can withstand the loads of repeated waves dragging on the kelp plants. The sea bamboo Ecklonia maxima grows in water which is shallow enough to allow it to reach to the surface with its gas-filled stipes, so that the fronds form a dense ...
Its fast growth and size provide an important habitat not only for the fish and invertebrates that reside in kelp forests, but also for species that use kelp forests as foraging grounds. [15] In bull kelp forests, kelp crabs are important grazers that control the ecosystem by feeding on large canopy kelps such as Nereocystis .
Pterygophora californica is a large species of kelp, commonly known as stalked kelp. It is the only species in its genus Pterygophora (Ruprecht, 1852). [2] It grows in shallow water on the Pacific coast of North America where it forms part of a biodiverse community in a "kelp forest". It is sometimes also referred to as woody-stemmed kelp ...
More commonly Norrisia norrisii is found in the shallow subtidal, particularly in kelp forests. On Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California, Norrisia norrisii is commonly seen crawling up and down stipes of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera. [9] [12]