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Who is trying to help?

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Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies - University of Tasmania, Australia

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Scientists have transplanted hundreds of kelp plants to artificial patch reefs in an experiment to test the resilience and stability of the important common kelp on Tasmania's sheltered east coast.

Thinning of kelp and increased patchiness of kelp forests because of warming ocean temperatures and spreading of the invasive long-spined sea urchin are having significant impacts on the ecology of rocky reefs in eastern Australia, which are home to hundreds of species that use kelp forests as habitat.

The first stage of the experiment by University of Tasmania researchers at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) was completed this week.

The array of artificial reefs covers over a hectare, and it is thought to be the first time an experiment with transplanted kelp of this size has been conducted anywhere in the world.

IMAS PhD researcher Cayne Layton said the science team deployed 28 patch reefs at seven metres depth in Mercury Passage between Maria Island and the Tasmanian mainland. 500 plants were transplanted onto these reefs.

The common kelp, Ecklonia radiata, occurs throughout the cool waters of Australia and the underwater forests it creates support highly productive and biodiverse ecosystems, including species such as rock lobster and abalone.

Mr Layton said kelp forests are a central feature of the region's marine ecology, and familiar to divers, spearfishers, commercial and recreational fishers, and tourism operators.

"Understanding how kelp forests thrive and support themselves from one generation to the next is critical to protecting these invaluable marine ecosystems.

"Unfortunately, kelp forests are under threat from a range of pressures including coastal development, invasive species, and climate change.

"Our research is examining how kelp forests change their surrounding environment, and how these changes in turn benefit future generations of kelp," he said.

The work is supervised by Prof Craig Johnson, Head of the IMAS Ecology and Biodiversity Centre, and Dr Jeff Wright, also from IMAS. Prof Johnson said his research team will monitor the constructed kelp forest for the next 18 months and examine how different densities of adult kelp and different patch sizes influence how the kelp affects its environment and its capacity to flourish.

For example, as adult kelp sweep back and forth in the swell they remove the sediment and sand beneath them, helping keep the rocks clean and clear and in the process making it more suitable for settlement of small kelp spores.

Mr Layton said scientists also will be deploying devices to collect larvae, which will allow examination of how the size and density of kelp forests affect the number of fish and invertebrates, such as lobsters and urchins, that settle into these underwater forests.

"We hope that by understanding these essential features of kelp forests we can help to maintain them and the services they provide in response to future threats and continuing ocean warming, and also gain a better understanding about how changes to our kelp forests may flow-on to affect the other organisms which also call kelp forests home," Prof Johnson said.

Mr Layton said the research team is securing invaluable experience in the transplanting of kelp. "In the future this may be a method used to restore and rejuvenate areas which have already suffered widespread kelp loss due to impacts such as marine heatwaves, increased nutrients, or invasive sea urchins," he said.

This research is supported by IMAS at the University of Tasmania, the Australian Research Council, and the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tl6tD8h9L4&feature=youtu.be

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Massive kelp forest experiment to beat habitat loss

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Scientists have transplanted hundreds of kelp plants to artificial patch reefs in an experiment to test the resilience and stability of the important common kelp on Tasmania's sheltered east coast.

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Who / what has it affected?

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The loss of Tasmania's great kelp forests wipes out a huge, complex habitat for a host of weird and beautiful creatures

By Emma Flukes

The last giant kelp forest on the east coast of Tasmania has been confirmed lost due to rapidly increasing ocean temperatures. Marine biologist and photographer Emma Flukes from Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, takes you on a tour of a vanishing world.

Read more on: World

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In pictures: creatures of Tasmania's disappearing kelp forests

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The loss of Tasmania's great kelp forests wipes out a huge, complex habitat for a host of weird and beautiful creatures By Emma Flukes The last giant kelp forest on the east coast of Tasmania has been confirmed lost due to rapidly increasing ocean temperatures.

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Something is eating the kelp...

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Just as climate change and pollution are triggering a massive destructive bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, global warming and a fundamental alteration in the Pacific Ocean ecology are destroying the nutrient-rich underwater kelp forests off America's west coast.

Large tracts of the giant seaweed along hundreds of miles of coast have vanished in the past few years in a transformation so rapid that it has startled scientists. Aerial surveys of kelp north of San Francisco from 2008 to 2014 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) revealed a 93% decline - and quickly growing even worse. The seaweed forests are considered among the most productive ecosystems on the planet.

The kelp, home to some 700 ocean species, has been devoured by the ubiquitous spiky purple urchin whose predators have been eliminated by illness in an increasingly toxic Pacific or driven away by what scientist refer to as an unprecedented "warm blob" of water off the coast from Mexico to Alaska that further increased in temperature during El Nino conditions.

The warming water is also directly harmful to the kelp because it interferes with the normal upwelling of nutrient- rich cold water, which helps the seaweed grow. In recent years, the kelp has produced far fewer fronds, diminishing reproductive capability and making the seaweed more susceptible to destruction by waves - and more vulnerable to purple urchins.

Researchers describe the newly desolate ocean tracts as "urchin barrens." But the kelp stalks have been so stripped by the urchins that even they are now starving.

Kelp forests are routinely impacted, but this sudden, severe destruction is unusual. "You just don't see the whole forest up and down the entire North Coast go away," said Cynthia Catton, an environmental scientist with the CDFW in Bodega Bay, who sees the kelp destruction as a consequence of a "perfect storm" of negative environmental factors.

The disappearing kelp has already severely impacted the red Abalone population as well as red sea urchin, sought by commercial operations for sushi, notes Catton.

It's one more troubling sign of an imploding Pacific coastal ecology that has witnessed a plummeting fish population, higher ocean acid levels, toxic algal blooms and increasing numbers of stranded starving and dead sea lion pups - all largely attributed to the rising temperatures of the coastal waters.

Scientists are still tracking the pace of the vanishing kelp, and uncertain if it can replenish itself quickly in the right conditions.

One California organisation is taking aggressively action to help the underwater forests by destroying purple urchins. Staffers and volunteers working in a kelp restoration project for the Santa Monica Bay Recovery Foundation in Southern California have killed 3.3 million purple urchins, clearing 142,000 square meters of seafloor of the animals. As a result, the kelp has begun to bounce back.

The project's main goal is to kill enough urchins to restore more than 600,000 square meters of seafloor off California's Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, where the kelp canopy has decreased by 75% due to "development, pollution, over-fishing and a changing ocean climate," according to an organisation statement.

"Our underwater kelp forests are a lot like tropical rainforests or redwood forests, providing a lot of the same life-giving benefits," said Tom Ford, director of marine programs for the foundation. "Just as our land-based forests need to be protected by controlling the bark beetle, we are doing the same in the underwater forests."

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Vital California kelp forests vanishing in global warming

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Just as climate change and pollution are triggering a massive destructive bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, global warming and a fundamental alteration in the Pacific Ocean ecology are destroying the nutrient-rich underwater kelp forests off America's west coast.

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Why is kelp disappearing?

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Australia's vast kelp forests devastated by marine heatwave, study reveals

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About 90% of forests off the western coast were wiped out between 2011 and 2013, posing a threat to biodiversity and the marine economy, say scientists

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Uses of kelp

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Kelp is used to make toothpastes, shampoos, salad dressings, puddings, cakes, dairy products, frozen foods, and even pharmaceuticals

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Lots of information for your sheets!
In particular...
Who has it affected and why.
Who is protecting it.

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https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EW-01-09-18-Disappearing-Kelp-Forests.mp3

In recent decades, ocean temperatures in many places have warmed by nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit. An effect of this warmer water is the decimation of what were once luxuriant giant kelp forests in eastern Australia and Tasmania. There used to be thick canopies covering much of the region's coastal sea surface, but they have wilted in the intolerably warm and nutrient-poor water.

Worse yet, a species of sea urchin that thrives in warmer water moved in and mowed down much of the remaining underwater vegetation, creating what are known as urchin barrens, which are bleak marine environments largely devoid of life. Urchin barrens are an extraordinary phenomenon in marine ecology. Once established, they tend to persist almost indefinitely. Today, more than 95% of Tasmania's kelp forests are gone.

Similar things have been happening in western Australia, southern Norway, and in northern California. In California, a mysterious blight that wiped out large numbers of sea stars that eat urchins resulted in a one-two punch of warmer water and booming urchin populations that severely damaged kelp forests.

Environmentalists in many places are trying to take action to reverse this trend. In Tasmania, the best strategy is to boost populations of predatory rock lobsters, which prey on sea urchins. But once the urchin barrens form, there is basically no way back.

In California, sea otters are voracious predators of urchins, so there is more hope for the kelp in that area.

The concern about kelp is not just about the giant underwater algae itself. There are many marine animals that depend on kelp including abalone, commercially valuable urchin species and many kinds of fish. The destruction of the kelp forests is a major disruption of marine ecosystems that will have far-ranging impacts.

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Web Links
As Oceans Warm, the World's Kelp Forests Begin to Disappear
Photo, posted October 29, 2010, courtesy of Tom Thai via Flickr.

'Disappearing Kelp Forests' from Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EW-01-09-18-Disappearing-Kelp-Forests.mp3 In recent decades, ocean temperatures in many places have warmed by nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit. An effect of this warmer water is the decimation of what were once luxuriant giant kelp forests in eastern Australia and Tasmania.

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Where it grows and who lives there.

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Plants in the ocean can be hard, soft, slimy or even delicious. Sea kelp is a special kind of ocean plant, the largest and the most critical plant to the survival of many endangered sea animals. Kelp adaptations for survival help the plant thrive in the demanding ocean environment.

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Tasmania's Disappearing Kelp Forests

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This is a compilation of footage taken in Jan. 2012 and Jan. 2013 of giant kelp forests off of south-eastern Tasmania. Forest locations were Fortescue Bay and Munro Bight. As of January 2013, the forest at Fortescue no longer exists.