California’s Crashing Kelp Forest

Katherine E Kerlin — October 21, 2019 - 2:00am

First the sea stars wasted to nothing. Then the purple urchins took over, eating and eating until the bull kelp forests were gone. The red abalone starved. Their fishery closed. Red sea urchins starved. Their fishery collapsed. And the ocean kept warming.

It sounds like an ecological horror movie, but this scenario actually happened between 2013 and 2017. Its lasting impacts continue to affect Northern California’s coast today, with another marine heat wave forecast for this winter.

Falling Stars

Katherine E Kerlin — January 30, 2019 - 1:35pm

The combination of ocean warming and an infectious wasting disease has devastated populations of large sunflower sea stars once abundant along the West Coast of North America in just a few years, according to a study co-led by the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University published Jan. 30 in the journal Science Advances.

Sea Stars Content

California’s Crashing Kelp Forest

Falling Stars