A recent study exposes an overlooked carbon sink in the form of kelp forests. According to scientists’ estimates, a kelp forest in Australia sequesters 3% of global carbon per year, and this has important implications for the rest of the global carbon budget. Ashley MickensI recently graduated with a degree in Environmental Earth Science and […]
Growing sea otter populations are seen as a conservation victory. These cute, charismatic marine mammals are rebounding from near extinction, and saving coastal ecosystems along the way. But their recovery comes with a catch that can cause conflicts with local communities. Ashley MarranzinoI received my Master’s degree from the University of Rhode Island where I […]
Kelp are habitat-forming species, the “ecosystem engineers” of our coasts. Standing metres tall and sheltering coastal habitats from the full force of the ocean’s waves, kelp provide a refuge for a variety of marine animals and create a forest ecosystem similar to what you might find in the temperate latitudes on land. They are nursery […]
The extensive decline of the Great Barrier Reef has received a lot of press attention in recent years, yet reefs aren’t the only down-under ecosystem struggling. In a recent paper in Estuaries and Coasts, researchers Carnell and Keough from the University of Melbourne and Deakin University have reported an equally alarming decline in kelp forests […]
In the plant world, competition between species is almost always over space. Space dictates how much sunlight, nutrients, and potential mates you have access to. In community ecology, it’s thought that ecosystems only have so much space to offer different species, with some ecosystems containing more space than others. Most systems are also thought to be saturated so that, […]