Latest Keystone species Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online How can sea otters change the world? A new study, led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that a thriving population of sea otters will keep the sea urchins in check, which will in turn allow kelp forests to prosper. Spreading kelp forests can absorb as much as 12 times the amount of CO2 from the atmosphere than if it were subject to sea urchin ravaging. "It is significant because it shows that animals can have...
New research by UBC zoologists indicates that elevated water temperatures and heightened concentrations of carbon dioxide can dramatically increase the growth rate of a keystone species of sea star.The study is one of the first to look at the impact of ocean acidification on marine invertebrates that don't have a large calcified skeleton or external shell, and challenges current assumptions about the potential impact of climate change on marine species.The findings were published online this...
Eagles shift their diet from aquatic marine animals to birdsSea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle.In nearshore marine communities, towering kelp can reach heights of 250 feet and function much like...
Latest Keystone species Reference Libraries
The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) is a large otter native to the North Pacific, from northern Japan and Kamchatka east across the Aleutian Islands south to California. The heaviest of the otters, sea otters are the only species within the genus Enhydra. They were hunted extensively for their luxurious fur. Its estimated that a half million to a million otters were killed over time. The population is thought to have been 150,000 to 300,000 historically before the years of the great hunt....
