Kelp Ecology Slideshow
- 1. Ambassadors of the Environment Kelp Bed Ecosystem www.oceanfutures.org/kelpecology As Ambassadors of the Environment we will explore the kelp bed ecosystem and discover lessons that can help us live more sustainable lives.
- 2. We will use the “city under the sea” metaphor to help explain the ecological roles of many different creatures in the kelp forest. Just like human cities where everyone has a specific job, kelp forests have power plants, farmers, recycling and waste managers, doctors, and demolition crews.
- 3. Kelp is essentially the “construction crew” and “architect” of the kelp forest: it creates the “buildings” –the 3D physical structure—in which countless organisms live and find shelter. Kelp is a type of brown algae and is considered one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Given optimal conditions, cold nutrient rich waters, kelp can grow up to 2 feet in one day and can reach over 100 feet in its lifetime, creating homes for the 800+ species of marine animals that live in the kelp forest.
- 4. Kelp attaches to the seafloor with a structure called a holdfast. Without this, the kelp might drift to shore and die, so the holdfast is the essential “foundation” of the kelp “building.”
- 5. Kelp needs sunlight to grow, so it has gas-filled bladders, or floats, that help it float to the ocean’s surface and collect as much sunlight as possible. It therefore creates a vertical structure with a variety of niches, from the surface to the mid-water and ocean floor.
- 6. Just like there are construction crews in this underwater city, there are also “demolition crews.” Sea urchins munch on the kelp’s holdfasts, sometimes chewing all the way through and freeing the kelp to float away in the ocean currents. The kelp can survive this way, but if it washes onto shore it will die and decompose.
- 7. In addition to providing the “buildings” in the city under the sea, kelp also serves as a “solar power plant.” The kelp blades reach out like leaves on a tree to collect the sun’s energy through a process called photosynthesis. Pigments in the blade collect the energy in photons of light and convert it into sugar, the kelp’s food! When other creatures eat the kelp, this energy is transferred up the food chain, eventually powering the entire kelp forest community.
- 8. The kelp forest, complete with its buildings and power plants, is home to many “families.” This is a male Garibaldi. He has carefully cultivated a nest of algae on which his mate will lay eggs (top left). The parents fiercely defend their nest from intruders.
- 9. Should a predator such as a sea star encroach on their territory, the parents immediately remove the threat to defend their young! We even have good parents in this city under the sea.
- 10. There is also “advertising” on the reef, just like we find throughout human cities. This nudibranch’s ad comes in the form of bright colors: they indicate the nudibranch contains nasty, unpalatable toxins and warn predators to steer clear!
- 11. Kelp forests, like human cities, are even home to “thieves” and “criminals.” The spanish shawl nudibranch (top left) eats hydroids (bottom right), which contain stinging cells. What is really cool is that the nudibranch can prevent the hydroids’ stingers from discharging and actually store Having stolen someone else’s defense, them in its gills (the orange frilly the nudibranch walks around in broad things on the top of the daylight, naked and without a shell, nudibranch). advertising itself with brilliant colors saying, “See my colorful gills? They are full of hydroid stingers and if you eat me you will get a mouthful of pain.” That’s quite an adaptation: using someone else’s defense for yourself and then using warning coloration to make sure everyone knows it. Not only is this efficient but it enables the snail to avoid going to the trouble of making a heavy shell.
- 12. Swimming through a kelp forest, one might happen upon a “doctor’s office.” These yellow senoritas are the doctors and the gray blacksmiths are their patients. Senoritas eat parasites and dead scales off their patients, keeping them clean and healthy while getting an easy meal. This is called a mutualistic relationship because both parties benefit.
- 13. Blacksmiths indicate they are ready for their doctor’s appointment by standing on their heads! Just like human doctor’s offices, there is usually a line, and each patient must wait his or her turn.
- 14. Kelp forests and human cities are very similar. However, unlike in human cities, the inhabitants of kelp beds generally do not pollute, deplete their natural resources, or destroy other ecosystems. Kelp forests offer lessons that can help us make our own communities more sustainable.
- 15. The Four Principles By understanding how nature works, we can imitate it and make our own way of life more sustainable on Earth. In the Ambassadors of the Environment program, we learned four simple lessons about how nature works and used them to brainstorm ways to live sustainably. We call them the Four Principals.
- 16. The Four Principles 1. Everything Runs On Energy. 2. There Is No Waste In Nature. 3. Biodiversity Is Good. 4. Everything Is Connected.
- 17. 1. Everything Runs The first Principle states that EVERYTHING RUNS ON ENERGY. On Energy Just like our bodies, cars, desktop lamps, computers, televisions, and appliances – every organism in nature needs energy. Some creatures, like kelp and plants on land, get their energy from the sun. They harness the sun’s energy to make their own food in a process called photosynthesis, and therefore we call them “primary producers.” They often provide the base of the food chain in their particular ecosystem, converting solar energy into chemical energy and thus transferring the sun’s energy to the rest of the ecosystem’s inhabitants.
- 18. Here is a Norris kelp snail grazing on kelp. This snail is an herbivore that uses its rough tongue to scrape off and eat algae, converting the kelp’s energy into snail energy. Notice there is a hole in the snail’s shell. Any idea who made this hole, and why?
- 19. The hole was made by this creature - an octopus. The octopus feeds on snails and other shellfish. In this food chain, the sun’s energy is converted into kelp energy, then into Norris kelp snail energy and then into octopus energy. But the food chain doesn’t stop here. So who would eat an octopus?
- 20. A sculpin (left) would consider an octopus a fine dish. So would a kelp bass (bottom). The sun’s energy is transferred from kelp, to Norris kelp snails, to octopuses, and finally to kelp bass and sculpins! And what a great energy source for the kelp city to use! Solar energy is a clean, renewable energy source that never runs out!
- 21. Humans presently get most of their power from oil and coal-power plants. In these power plants, oil or coal is burned to heat water and create steam, which turns turbines that generate electricity. However, burning oil and coal releases harmful greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere, contributing to global climate change. This problem could be solved by switching to renewable energy such as wind, solar, and biofuel energy.
- 22. In a solar oven sunlight is converted to heat and used for cooking. Solar ovens are being used in many developing countries to reduce the cutting of trees. This helps protect forests, which can take up carbon dioxide and reduce this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
- 23. Many homes and developments use solar panels to heat water. This saves money and it reduces our use of petroleum and the release of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. A win-win situation!
- 24. 2. There Is No Waste In Nature The second principle says “THERE IS NO WASTE IN NATURE.” In nature, resources such as nutrients are continually used and recycled. Nutrients are fertilizer that plants need to grow and make food. In the kelp forests, creatures such as lobsters eat detritus, the organic “leftovers” or “dead stuff” on the seafloor. Along with worms and microbes, lobsters ensure that organic matter is converted back into raw materials (nutrients) for plants to use again.
- 25. Like lobsters, sea cucumber eat detritus. What’s great about them is what comes out their back end is cleaner than what goes in their mouths! They ingest a mixture of sand and detritus and poop out clean sand, thus keeping the forest nice and clean while getting a meal!
- 26. Remember the food chain we learned about? This diagram summarizes that food chain. It shows how predators like kelp bass or sculpins might die, fall to the seafloor, and decompose to become detritus that’s eaten by creatures like sea cucumbers and lobsters. The sea cucumbers also die, decomposing into the simple nutrients that will eventually fertilize the growth of new kelp, thus re-entering the nutrient cycle. In the kelp forest, nutrients are used over and over again: There is no waste in nature!!
- 27. Today, humans tend to waste a lot of resources. One thing we can do to change this situation is compost. Composting is where worms, bugs and microbes convert organic waste into soil, just as we see in nature. By composting food leftovers, we prevent garbage from going to ever-growing landfills, where things take a much longer time to break down and don’t get the chance to return to a natural ecosystem. Instead, waste is converted into useful, fertile soil that can be reused in a garden.
- 28. At Ambassadors of the Environment programs, participants sort their meal’s leftovers to compost. The garbage goes into worm bins where the worms eat this food waste and poop out nutrient-rich soil. This compost is the perfect fertilizer for a garden!
- 29. The compost fertilizer can then be used to grow plants in an organic garden, and in turn we can eat yummy fruits and vegetables! In nature everything is recycled - there is no waste in nature.
- 30. 3. Biodiversity Is Good Biodiversity refers to the number of different species that live in a certain ecosystem. Biodiversity is like nature’s insurance policy, because when there are a lot of different organisms in an ecosystem, all of the important work needed to keep the community healthy gets done. If one species ails or disappears, many others are around to replace it. The kelp forest is home to an interesting biodiversity of different organisms, and each has specific adaptations to help it thrive in its particular niche. This Wavy Turban snail, for example, grazes algae and other types of organic matter on the bottom of the ocean with a hard shell for protection.
- 31. The wavy turban snail has adapted a strong shell and a really neat trap door, called an operculum, to protect itself from predators even if it is turned upside down. Pretty clever since its soft body would probably be a yummy meal to many hungry mouths in the kelp forest…
- 32. …like this hornshark. It would feast upon a wavy turban snail if it could ever find one without its hard protective shell.
- 33. Biodiversity is good within a single species. Juvenile garibaldi (top) look different from the adults (bottom) so they are not forced to compete as adults at a young age. This diversity of form keeps the juveniles safer in the kelp forest environment and therefore keeps the species as a whole stronger!
- 34. This rock contains boring clams are among the demolition crews of the coastline. They protect themselves by boring down into solid rock, creating an even safer shelter than a shell. Their foot can secrete chemicals that erode the rock, allowing the clam to rub its own shell slowly to create a hole. And when the clam grows bigger, it will just bore some more until its shelter fits just right. As clams bore holes into rocks, rocks break down more easily, creating more sand, which replenishes beaches that lose sand to the deep sea. A clam’s life is anything but boring!
- 35. Mussels are specially adapted for life on rocks. They produce adhesive strings called byssal threads that allow them to attach firmly to rocks and other hard surfaces. So when the surf is big mussels can withstand the powerful force of the waves. Mussels take advantage of the waves washing over them by filter feeding plankton through their gills.
- 36. 4. Everything Is Connected The fourth Ambassadors of the Environment principle is that EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED. Humans are connected to nature, the ocean is connected to the land, and everyone - humans, animals, plants - is connected to the future. Here we see how kelp creates a habitat, like a city under the sea, where many fish seek shelter.
- 37. This holdfast, that attaches kelp firmly to the bottom, is a prefect place for small creatures to hide. There can be thousands of creatures living in a holdfast, including anemones, sponges, worms, clams, snails, shrimp and other crustaceans, sea stars, brittle stars, sea cucumbers and fish. Some are juveniles that will grow up and leave while others may live in the holdfast for their entire lives. Many species are connected to kelp for food and for a place to live.
- 38. Kelp forests are also connected to the land. When kelp is washed onto shore it can become a valuable resource for creatures that live between the tides and some of those creatures can be food for land animals.
- 39. This amphipod loves to munch on the kelp that washes to shore! Amphipods (or beach hoppers) are great recyclers for the beach – having more than 8000 species around the world, they help beaches around the world stay clean by eating all the decomposing algae.
- 40. As the beach hoppers munch on the dead kelp, they break the algae down and help bacteria convert kelp into nutrients. These nutrients fertilize the growth of more algae, while the beach hoppers get gobbled up by hungry sea gulls. Then when seagulls roost on land they poop. Their digested beach hoppers become fertilizer for plants and trees along the coast, supplying terrestrial ecosystems with valuable nutrients. Sea and land, kelp and birds, beach hoppers and coastal plants – they are all connected.
- 41. Sea urchins live on the bottom and eat algae, including kelp. In a healthy ecosystem predators, like urchins, and prey, like kelp, are in balance and both species survive just fine. But if the predators that control urchin populations disappear, then the urchins can eat all the kelp and create an ecological imbalance.
- 42. Important predators on sea urchins are sea otters, on the right, and sheephead, on the left. Both of these species have been overharvested by humans. With fewer predators on urchins, the urchin populations have grown and this in turn results in less kelp and other species of algae. This is not good for all of the plants and animals that depend on kelp for their survival.
- 43. This is called an urchin barren. In the absence of predators, this population of urchins has grazed down all of the kelp. As urchin predators, sea otters and sheephead are important in maintaining the entire kelp bed ecosystem with the hundreds of species live in it. Everything is connected.
- 44. All residents in the kelp bed ecosystem are connected. Some species depend on others for food. Some use others as a habitat or place to live. Some like senoritas are cleaners and keep their patients healthy. Some nudibranchs use other species for their defense, stealing stinging capsules from hydroids they eat. Kelp beds demonstrate the interdependence of life.
- 45. 1. Everything Runs The kelp bed On Energy. ecosystem shows the importance 2. There Is No of our Four Waste In Nature. Principles. It helps us think 3. Biodiversity Is about what we Good. can do to live in harmony with nature and 4. Everything Is create more Connected. sustainable lives.