Field Collection and Laboratory Maintenance of Canopy-Forming Giant Kelp to Facilitate Restoration.

Canopy-forming kelps are essential foundation species, supporting biodiversity and providing ecosystem services valued at more than USD$500 billion annually. The global decline of giant kelp forests due to climate-driven ecological stressors underscores the need for innovative restoration strategies. An emerging restoration technique known as 'green gravel' aims to seed young kelps over large areas without extensive underwater labor and represents a promising restoration tool due to cost-effectiveness and scalability.

A Decade of Death and Other Dynamics: Deepening Perspectives on the Diversity and Distribution of Sea Stars and Wasting.

AbstractMass mortality events provide valuable insight into biological extremes and also ecological interactions more generally. The sea star wasting epidemic that began in 2013 catalyzed study of the microbiome, genetics, population dynamics, and community ecology of several high-profile species inhabiting the northeastern Pacific but exposed a dearth of information on the diversity, distributions, and impacts of sea star wasting for many lesser-known sea stars and a need for integration across scales. Here, we combine datasets from single-site to coast-wide studies, across time lines from weeks to decades, for 65 species.

Short-term effects of community-based marine reserves on green abalone, as revealed by population studies.

Marine reserves (MRs) are implemented worldwide to protect, restore, and manage marine ecosystems and species. However, it is important to document the positive effects those marine reserves have on slow-growth, temperate invertebrates such as abalone. Abalone, Haliotis spp.

The value of ecosystem services in global marine kelp forests.

While marine kelp forests have provided valuable ecosystem services for millennia, the global ecological and economic value of those services is largely unresolved. Kelp forests are diminishing in many regions worldwide, and efforts to manage these ecosystems are hindered without accurate estimates of the value of the services that kelp forests provide to human societies. Here, we present a global estimate of the ecological and economic potential of three key ecosystem services - fisheries production, nutrient cycling, and carbon removal provided by six major forest forming kelp genera (Ecklonia, Laminaria, Lessonia, Macrocystis, Nereocystis, and Saccharina).

Shading by giant kelp canopy can restrict the invasiveness of Undaria pinnatifida (Laminariales, Phaeophyceae).

The spread of non-indigenous and invasive seaweeds has increased worldwide, and their potential effects on native seaweeds have raised concern. Undaria pinnatifida is considered among the most prolific non-indigenous species. This species has expanded rapidly in the Northeast Pacific, overlapping with native communities such as the iconic giant kelp forests (Macrocystis pyrifera).

Conservation aquaculture as a tool for imperiled marine species: Evaluation of opportunities and risks for Olympia oysters, Ostrea lurida.

Conservation aquaculture is becoming an important tool to support the recovery of declining marine species and meet human needs. However, this tool comes with risks as well as rewards, which must be assessed to guide aquaculture activities and recovery efforts. Olympia oysters (Ostrea lurida) provide key ecosystem functions and services along the west coast of North America, but populations have declined to the point of local extinction in some estuaries.

Geographic variation in responses of kelp forest communities of the California Current to recent climatic changes.

The changing global climate is having profound effects on coastal marine ecosystems around the world. Structure, functioning, and resilience, however, can vary geographically, depending on species composition, local oceanographic forcing, and other pressures from human activities and use. Understanding ecological responses to environmental change and predicting changes in the structure and functioning of whole ecosystems require large-scale, long-term studies, yet most studies trade spatial extent for temporal duration.

Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries.

Parasites can have strong impacts but are thought to contribute little biomass to ecosystems. We quantified the biomass of free-living and parasitic species in three estuaries on the Pacific coast of California and Baja California. Here we show that parasites have substantial biomass in these ecosystems.