When otters are present, urchins hide in crevices and snack on kelp scraps. These urchins would usually eat the majority of the kelp; however the sea otters can prevent this. Sea otters, by eating sea urchins, help kelp to flourish. Using a dataset collected over four years, Burt and her colleagues learned that sea otters are not the only predators that have a significant effect on urchins, and thus not the only creature that can help ensure the health and abundance of kelp forests: the less cute but nonetheless impressive sunflower star also plays a major role. The following story is an excerpt from Heart of the Coast: Biodiversity and Resilience on the Pacific Edge by Tyee Bridge — a new, beautifully photographed introduction to B.C. To understand the relationship between the two, Estes needed to find an area that was devoid of otters and see what the kelp forests looked like. Researchers from British Columbia to California have seen large swaths of kelp forest disappear off the coastline in recent years, a troubling development that appears connected both to rising ocean temperatures and SSWD. Sea otter resting on the ocean surface, grasping a purple sea urchin it has just pulled up off the ocean floor. You feel like you’re on another planet, in a zero-gravity environment with all this life that you don’t normally get to see.”. Estes’s observations revealed an “extraordinarily high” sea otter population around Amchitka, inhabiting a lush undersea world of kelp forests. The need to stick with your “dive buddy” and communicate with hand signals or by scrawling on a slate can slow things down, as can murky water. * Sea Otter Seaweed Kelp Octopus. You can help by joining our GoFundMe campaign or donating via our Donate link. The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. These furry creatures are closely intertwined with the life cycle and recovery of kelp forests from urchin predation. Also known as seaweed, there are red, green and brown varieties of marine algae, among others. 's coastal ecology, glaciology and archaeology done in partnership with the Hakai Institute. As he tells in Serendipity, what he saw when he put on his scuba gear and entered the waters off Shemya shocked him: "When I looked down at the seafloor, I was stunned by the vast numbers of urchins and the absence of kelp… Every place I looked was the same—large and abundant sea urchins over a seafloor of crustose coralline algae with little or no kelp… In the absence of sea otter predation, sea urchins had increased in size and number, and the larger and more abundant urchins had eaten the kelp. And the Kelp provides an anchor for the Sea Otter when they sleep. Burt’s original focus was to track ecological communities before, during and after the arrival of sea otters, which — because of their post-fur trade population recovery — are still recolonizing reef habitats across the North Pacific Rim. In this relationship, the sea otter eats sea urchins, as discussed above. Since both organisms are benefitting this is an example of mutualism. They provide nourishment to the grazing herbivores that feed on them, such as sea urchins and abalone. By controlling the size and number of sea urchins (sea urchins are one of their favorite foods, and they eat the larger ones first), sea otters created the opportunity for kelp to grow and flourish, which in turn created habitat for numerous other kelp forest dwellers. Researchers have also discovered that kelp forests in the northeast Pacific can be dramatically impacted by the presence of two predators. * Sea Urchin Kelp Crab Large Fish. Their beautiful fur is a main target for many hunters. “By the time you clip all the gear onto yourself so that you have everything and it doesn’t float away,” Burt says with a laugh, “it can look like a real gong show.”. Without otters to keep them in check, sea urchins in particular, with a healthy appetite for flora, were free to mow down large swaths of kelp forests that once flourished. Enhydra lutris has a very close relationship with kelp. Fur traders in the 18th and 19th centuries hunted the animals to the brink of extinction, allowing sea urchin numbers to skyrocket, Dr. Rasher said. Just as terrestrial forests support a vast range of life, the stipes and fronds of a kelp forest benefit everything from sea anemones to rockfish to whales. A new trophic cascade involving sea otters was recently discovered in a Central California estuary. The Sea Otters have a Symbiotic Relationship with Kelp. Which animal is the Decomposer? But when there are not enough predators like sea otters to feed on sea urchins, the urchins graze over and effectively wipe out kelp forests. Sea otters live in a cold ocean environment and rely on two traits to keep warm: a dense fur coat for insulation and very high metabolism to generate body heat. In the 1970s, a scientist named Dr. James Estes recognized that he could study the influence of sea otters on other species in their environment by comparing the coastal habitats in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands where sea otters had recovered to similar places where sea otters were absent. Sea urchins have recently decimated kelp forests in Northern California, leaving researchers to wonder why Southern California kelp forests have remained relatively intact without sea otters to control the urchin populations. Without Sea Otters Kelp Forests Are Consumed By Urchins (credit: Mike Kenner), The Sea Otter's Big Appetite Helps Control Sea Urchins (credit: Joe Tomoleoni), Without Sea Otters Eel Grass Is Covered In Thick Algae (credit: Brent Hughes), With Sea Otters Sea Slugs Are Able To Consume Algae (credit: Brent Hughes). Sea otters eat about 25% of their weight every day, and is arguably the number one cause in sea otter deaths, when they cannot forage enough food to feed themselves. Unlike the woods on land, a kelp forest moves with the push and pull of the ocean — and so do the researchers. Watch this great short film to understand more about keystone species: While scuba diving in the Aleutian Islands, Dr. Estes noticed places where the seafloor was covered with sea urchins and no kelp remained. When boats are able to go out to gather data — in Burt’s case, counting sunflower stars, or performing an undersea experiment to track urchin feeding rates — divers have only 45 to 60 minutes to complete their task before their oxygen runs out. Without sea otters, sea urchins and other herbivorous invertebrates are left unchecked to graze through swathes of giant kelp forests, creating barren stretches of coastal habitat behind them that once served as nurseries for fish, seals and hordes of other sea life. The Sea Otters eat Sea Urchins, which harm the kelp. Juvenile salmon, herring and rockfish all use kelp beds for habitat, as do crabs, sea stars, abalone and other snails. It’s ironic that the undersea world is so alien to most of us, since it makes up over 70 per cent of the globe. By wiping out huge numbers of sea stars, including those in nearshore kelp-producing zones, SSWD had created a new set of research conditions. Sea urchins are herbivores and feed on seaweeds like kelp. Large-scale hunting, part of the Maritime Fur Trade, which would eventually kill approximately one million sea otters, began in the 18th century when hunters and traders began to arrive from all over the world to meet foreign demand for otter pelts, which were one of the world's most valua… Sea otters play a small role in mitigating global climate change, but their impact points to a larger lesson: wildlife … Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. Sea otters were hunted to near extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700 and 1800s. In coastal areas where sea otters regularly consume sea urchins, kelp forests have a greater chance to take hold and endure, and act as an undersea forest habitat for other marine animals. Simply put: the sea otter consumes the sea urchin which indirectly results in safeguarding the kelp forests (that harbor life and also sequestrate carbon). All Rights Reserved. In the food relationship where the sea otter eats the sea urchin, and the sea urchin eats kelp, describe the relationship between the sea otter and sea urchin. The correct food chain should be squirts → trogs → zinks . For Hakai Institute scientists, undersea surveys bring other challenges. Her mentors and colleagues include renowned coastal ecology experts Jane Watson and Anne Salomon. Sea otters are carnivores that feed on an array of marine species—mostly invertebrates like crabs, clams, urchins, snails and worms. Fortunately, sea otters have an appetite for sea urchins and they help to keep sea urchins in check, allowing the kelp to flourish and capture CO 2. He would go on to realize that sea otters are a keystone predator that increases the abundance of a diverse array of sea life. The stipes and fronds of a kelp forest create a three-dimensional lattice that benefits everything from invertebrates like snails and anemones to marine mammals like seals and whales — providing food, hiding places and shelter. Subsequent generations of Californians didn’t know anything else, but as sea otters reclaim their historic range, I expect we will continue to discover far-reaching ecological effects that we hadn’t anticipated. In contrast, Dr. Estes noticed that places with healthy sea otter populations often had healthy kelp forest habitat as well. After four years of research, Burt and her colleagues came to a groundbreaking new understanding of the relationships between kelp, urchins and sea otters — thanks to unexpected discoveries about a previously overlooked bottom-dwelling predator. This metabolism needs to be continually stoked with energy in the form of food, and sea otters must consume as much as 25% of their body weight each day in order to stay warm and survive. Otters feed on sea urchins, which in turn keeps them from overgrazing on kelp. By studying how sea otters were foraging in the Elkhorn Slough—what prey species they were eating and where they were feeding—Dr. What Burt noticed on underwater surveys after the disease event was that there were more small and medium-size urchins everywhere Burt and her colleagues looked. What are the Producers? Sea otters aren’t just cute – these marine mammals play a vital role protecting the kelp forests which maintain our climate and prevent storm damage. Part of a recovering North Pacific population and expanding across the Central Coast over the past three decades, sea otters are a keystone species that indirectly influence the abundance of kelp forest habitat. Case study: Sea Otters →Crabs → Sea Slugs → Micro Algae → Eelgrass. Aleutian sea otters have been in flux before. Symbiotic Relationships Natural Selection Works Cited QuIz. Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. Now, new research suggests this kelp may also be helping the otters in turn. Without additional financial support for 2021, we will not be able to sustain our research, outreach, and conservation efforts at the level our team has worked so hard to establish at a time when sea otters need us most. According to the Seattle Aquarium, sea otters consume around 25 percent of their body weight in food every day to stay warm and survive in the cold Pacific Ocean. Sea otters are another predator of urchins in the kelp forests. So what does this underwater relationship look like? “It really is like that Joni Mitchell line, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’” says Burt. But Estes didn’t understand the real meaning of what he’d seen until a meeting with veteran … When urchins are uncontrolled by predators they become larger and more abundant, feeding on kelp until little remains. [16] Seals are frequent visitors to kelp forests, and grey whales will feed on the crab larvae they find there — as well as use the kelp to hide their calves from killer whales. There are areas with and without sea otters where researchers can compare the differences in kelp abundance, urchin populations and other aspects of undersea habitat. The sea otters help the kelp by eating the sea urchins because if there is too big of a population of sea urchins the kelp is endangered. The complexity of trophic … * Sea Otter Great White Shark Hagfish Crab. Otter populations are affected by the density of prey they hunt. In the wake of a devastating disease outbreak that ravaged starfish populations from Alaska to Mexico, researchers like Jenn Burt are just starting to understand the role that sunflower stars play in helping kelp beds to thrive. The sea otter eats sea urchins which if there is a large population makes the kelp endangered. The organisms sea otters had evolved alongside suddenly lost the main predator that kept them in check. * Hagfish Large Fish Sea Urchin Kelp. Now, a ne… Sea otters dive to rocky reefs, where they collect invertebrates and also a large rock. They are sensitive to temperature, ripped up by storms and affected by currents and waves. The lined chiton has no self-defense mechanisms, so he often cohabitates with purple sea urchins and green anemones. “We just don’t always know what we’re going to find.”. Copyright © 2021 Sea Otter Savvy. Sea otter benefit from this relationship because they use kelp to anchor themselves when they sleep. In 1970, an ecologist named James A. Estes traveled to Amchitka Island in Alaska’s Aleutian archipelago to study sea otters. Rather than using roots — as seagrasses do, which unlike algae are true plants — they cling to the rocky seafloor using growths called holdfasts. Burt and her colleagues also carry a panoply of marine science tools: a foldable, two-dimensional box for sampling called a quadrat; sealable bags for collecting everything from kelp to invertebrates; a writing slate with data sheets, pencil and built-in ruler; and meter tapes for measuring survey areas, known as transects. Sea otter skull with echinochrome staining. But Estes didn’t understand the real meaning of what he’d seen until a meeting with veteran ecologist Bob Paine. They leave behind desolate areas called urchin barrens. In turn, these grazers provide food for predators, such as sea otters and certain species of sea stars like the sunflower star. Thanks to Estes, and the work of subsequent researchers like David Duggins and Jane Watson, the beneficial effects of sea otters in propagating kelp habitats have been well established among ecologists, and increasingly well known to the general public. That gave the team some hunches about what they wanted to look at more closely in the data. Kelp is a type of marine algae. What would happen to the ecosystem if the Octopus go extinct? Traditionally, California’s iconic sea otter has stepped in to keep urchin populations in check. your subscription today. Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. Sea otters do an excellent job of eating large sea urchins over eight centimetres in diameter, but they tend to leave behind smaller urchins. Since then, this kind of comparative study has been carried out in other parts of Alaska, Canada, Washington state, Russia and California. A keystone species is one that is comparatively rare but has a strong influence on its environment. To oblivion and back. The sea otter’s diet relies heavily on sea urchins that can consume 30 feet of kelp forest in less than a month. While studying the health of Elkhorn Slough, an estuary on Monterey Bay, Dr. Brent Hughes noticed that beds of eelgrass, an important component of many estuaries, were healthy there compared to other estuaries on the central coast. Burt has years of experience exploring the ocean floor off British Columbia’s Central Coast, but scuba diving still fills her with wonder. How sea otters are radically changing the West Coast ecosystem 50 years after their return to B.C. Salomon notes that although many ecologists had suspected that sunflower stars played a role in the resilience of kelp forests, that role had not yet been measured or acknowledged. Photo by Sebastian Kennerknecht/Minden Pictures . Seaweeds and sea otters have a symbiotic relationship as evidenced by the rafts of sea otters (Enhydrus lutra), numbering in the hundreds, bobbing amongst the kelp beds just north of Tofino in Kyuquot Sound, Vancouver Island. When SSWD struck the region during the winter of 2015, it suddenly brought a new dimension to the research: a rare opportunity to also look at how predatory sea stars influence coastal rocky reef ecosystems. They have an interesting method of eating their prey. Sea otters have the thickest fur of any mammal. Since sea otters feed on sea urchins, they help to keep the sea urchin populations in balance and in return help to maintain a healthy kelp forest ecosystem. By controlling the number of crabs, sea otters helped sea slugs and other tiny marine grazers flourish. Their timing was serendipitous. The relationships between predators and prey vary among communities. This was my 'aha moment,' a profound realization that would set a path for the remainder of my life.". The complexity of trophic cascades can vary extensively from place to place, but this basic pattern is the foundation for understanding how sea otters fit into a healthy coastal environment. The sea otter and kelp also have a mutualistic relationship. The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. The disease outbreak created what is known to researchers as a natural experiment — a unique condition that appears without artificial or planned intervention. However, sea urchins also love to eat the holdfasts of kelp. “When you remove an organism from the system, it’s then you realize that its impact was actually quite substantial.”. Dr. Estes found that the presence of sea otters had a dramatic effect on coastal habitats (see case study below). “When you descend below the surface, it’s like going into space. Sea Otters Are Walled in by Hungry Sharks Outside the safety of the kelp forest, California sea otters are being picked off by sharks. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that the waters of the Central Coast are rarely still. Image courtesy Ryan MIller. Some sea otters eat so many purple sea urchins over their lifetime that their teeth and bones actually become stained purple (known as echinochrome staining). The abundance of food now known to be generated by kelp forests has influenced the rise of the kelp highway hypothesis: the idea that the first ice-age human populations to expand southward from Beringia did so by exploiting the rich marine resources of ice-free coastal regions, rather than migrating via an inland corridor between ice sheets. Sea otters are considered a keystone species because of the crucial ecological role they play in maintaining the health and stability of the nearshore marine ecosystem. Beginning in 2013, Burt and her colleagues studied rocky reef areas around Calvert Island on the Central Coast of B.C., initially trying to better understand the effect that sea otters were having on undersea ecological communities. They help to clean up any kelp that has fallen to the sea floor. COVID-19 has been the source of both obstacles and innovations to our plans and strategies for outreach and research, but it is due to the shock of the pandemic on our grants and funding sources that Sea Otter Savvy is facing our most serious threat to survival. He will tuck himself beneath the prickly protection of the purple sea urchin, finding a safe haven in a dangerous ocean. You need an active subscription to post a comment. Rough weather on the outer coast can keep research vessels tied up at the dock for days. * What are the Primary Consumers? Archaeological evidence indicates that for thousands of years, indigenous peoples have hunted sea otters for food and fur. This type of relationship between a predator (sea otter), herbivore (urchin), and plant (kelp) is known as a trophic cascade. Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with their tube feet, and sometimes pushing themselves with their spines. Despite the Cold War considerations that placed him there, his research ended up transforming our modern understanding of coastal ecology. “There are so many interactions in the ocean that we don’t totally understand and probably never will, because we can’t systematically remove and then replace all the animals in the ocean,” says Burt. The Atomic Energy Commission had sponsored his research there ahead of a contentious nuclear test on the island. 's waters is an incredible tale of recovery for a species once hunted into oblivion for its lush fur. #401 of 412 articles from the Special Report: COVID-19 outbreak at Ottawa shelter linked to LTC workers, commission told, How this young math whiz is bringing free tutoring to students around the world, How new COVID-19 travel rules could hurt Canada’s greenhouse vegetable industry, 380 whales dead in worst mass stranding in Australia's history, North Atlantic right whales nearing extinction, One remote Fundy isle and the seabirds that claim it, Support award-winning independent journalism with Upon returning to the surface, they float on their backs, with the rock on the stomachs. Many of the funding sources that have supported our work over the last five years are reducing or suspending funding opportunities as they ride out the pandemic. Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. The kelp can flourish, providing habitat for many ocean organisms. Their predators include sea otters, starfish, wolf eels, triggerfish, and humans. Sea urchins are like vacuum cleaners of the ocean floor. “Most of us only ever see the surface of the ocean,” she says. “When you see a sea otter, they’re usually either eating or digesting,” often munching on urchins, says ecologist Anne Salomon, a Pew marine fellow. In the waters around Calvert Island, where surface temperatures dip as low as 8 C, subaquatic researchers need an airtight dry suit along with their usual scuba gear. These small urchins also readily devour kelp, and if their numbers swell, they begin to thin out kelp forests. Although this relationship … The grazers in turn kept the eelgrass blades clean and healthy. The growing sea otter population in B.C. The Sea Otters eat Sea Urchins, which harm the kelp. herbivores. The sea otter also has an ongoing relationship with brown algae (aka kelp) which is mutualistic (Costa, 2011). Confirming the previously uncertain role of sunflower stars in kelp-bed ecology will help researchers as they monitor the resilience of kelp beds across the North Pacific Rim and manage their recovery. Sea otters are such voracious eaters, West Coast crab and sea urchin fishermen have gone on record with concerns and cautions. Rather than wondering how the kelp forests affected otters… why not explore how the otters affected the kelp forests?”. When hungry sea otters smack spiky urchins against rocks on their chests, the mammals may also be striking a blow against climate change. By controlling the size and number of sea urchins (sea urchins are one of their favorite foods, and they eat the larger ones first), sea otters created the opportunity for kelp to grow and flourish, which in turn created habitat for numerous other kelp forest dwellers. “This is the important element of surprise in science,” says Burt. The waters around the Hakai Institute on Calvert Island are at the leading edge of this expansion, and like the Aleutian Islands, are well suited to this sort of study. Estes had seen what is now known as an urchin barren, the result of a trophic cascade. Kelp produce their own food through photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight and organic carbon from the environment. Sea stars and sea otters will happily dine on both creatures, and harlequin ducks will pluck the chiton from his rocky abode. Researchers have long known about the intricate relationship between sea otters, kelp forests and sea urchins. “Sunflower stars mop up the little sea urchins,” says Anne Salomon. “Bob listened to my account of what I had seen while diving," Estes recalled in his 2016 memoir Serendipity, "and what I thought it might mean and then abruptly suggested a simple but radically different change in perspective. What kind of "eater" are manatees? Image courtesy Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute. Sea otters eat shellfish and other invertebrates (especially clams, abalone, and sea urchins). “With the near extinction of sea otters during the fur trade, our coastal ecosystems were radically downgraded and simplified. One of the results of Dr. Estes’ research was to designate sea otters as a “keystone species”. Interspecific Interactions (Predators and relationships): The purple sea urchin is the prey to many other species, such as: - Sea Otters (Left) - Sunflower Starfish (Below) - Horn Sharks (Below) Although they have spines for protection, animals such as the sea otter can break them open and feed on the insides of the urchin. Observing sea otters and kelp beds on Amchitka — both onshore and during scuba dives — led Estes to question the links between them. But a new twist on this relationship, usually understood as a three-way interaction between urchins, kelp and sea otters, has recently come out of the work done on the Central Coast by Jenn Burt and her Hakai Institute colleagues. Like land-based plants and trees, kelp and other algae form the base of the marine food web. Sea otters are foragers that eat mostly hard-shelled invertebrates, including sea urchins and a variety of clams, mussels, and crabs. Sea otters are known to carry rocks when they dive, to increase their weight when diving, as well as to … This type of relationship between a predator (sea otter), herbivore (urchin), and plant (kelp) is known as a trophic cascade. On the Central Coast reefs she studied, Burt links the loss of sunflower stars to a startling 300 per cent spike in the population of small and medium-size urchins, and to a resulting 30 per cent decline in kelp density. As sea otters reclaimed their role as predators in this estuary, they helped restore balance to this important habitat connecting land to sea. “But when we have that opportunity to observe a sudden absence of a particular organism, and see what the impacts of that are, we have a lot more understanding. Fragmentation and recovery from fur trade hunting created opportunity for scientific study. Even the smallest donation may fund a “Respect the Nap” sticker for a child or a pair of binoculars for one of our community science researchers. Once the kelp dies it floats up and provides the sea otter with a source of food. Sloan Wangel APES Woods Case Study TB p.101-102 Sea Otters Sea otters are well known as a keystone species because of their ability to transform sea urchin-dominated communities into kelp-dominated communities by preying on sea urchins and thus reducing the intensity of herbivory. This is a mutualism relationship because both species benefit from the interaction. “It was very interesting to learn how they give a helping hand to the apex predator in these areas, sea otters.”.
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