They leave behind desolate areas called urchin barrens. Sea stars and sea otters will happily dine on both creatures, and harlequin ducks will pluck the chiton from his rocky abode. 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. As sea otters reclaimed their role as predators in this estuary, they helped restore balance to this important habitat connecting land to sea. The sea otter and kelp also have a mutualistic relationship. Like land-based plants and trees, kelp and other algae form the base of the marine food web. Burt and her fellow researchers began collecting data in 2013, not knowing that two years later, the epizootic of sea star wasting disease (SSWD) would strike the waters around Calvert Island. “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.”. Sea otters have the thickest fur of any mammal. Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. That gave the team some hunches about what they wanted to look at more closely in the data. 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. Traditionally, California’s iconic sea otter has stepped in to keep urchin populations in check. Researchers have long known about the intricate relationship between sea otters, kelp forests and sea urchins. Enhydra lutris has a very close relationship with kelp. 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. In 1970, an ecologist named James A. Estes traveled to Amchitka Island in Alaska’s Aleutian archipelago to study sea otters. Dr. Estes found that the presence of sea otters had a dramatic effect on coastal habitats (see case study below). How sea otters are radically changing the West Coast ecosystem 50 years after their return to B.C. 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. 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. “When you descend below the surface, it’s like going into space. Kelp is a type of marine algae. 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. Sea otters were hunted to near extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700 and 1800s. 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. Sea otter resting on the ocean surface, grasping a purple sea urchin it has just pulled up off the ocean floor. Sea urchins are herbivores and feed on seaweeds like kelp. Their beautiful fur is a main target for many hunters. The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. 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. Estes’s observations revealed an “extraordinarily high” sea otter population around Amchitka, inhabiting a lush undersea world of kelp forests. In contrast, Dr. Estes noticed that places with healthy sea otter populations often had healthy kelp forest habitat as well. In this relationship, the sea otter eats sea urchins, as discussed above. “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. Since then, this kind of comparative study has been carried out in other parts of Alaska, Canada, Washington state, Russia and California. Now, a ne… 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. Which animal is the Decomposer? 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. 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. The Sea Otters eat Sea Urchins, which harm the kelp. Sea otters are foragers that eat mostly hard-shelled invertebrates, including sea urchins and a variety of clams, mussels, and crabs. They use the rock as a table against which they smash their shelled prey to g… Now, new research suggests this kelp may also be helping the otters in turn. The Sea Otters eat Sea Urchins, which harm the kelp. Sea otter skull with echinochrome staining. Manatees eat sea grass to survive, but they do not eat animals. “Sea star wasting disease came and did the experiment for us, and research on the Central Coast with Jenn Burt provided evidence of the important role that sunflower stars have,” says Salomon. He will tuck himself beneath the prickly protection of the purple sea urchin, finding a safe haven in a dangerous ocean. This is a mutualism relationship because both species benefit from the interaction. 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. 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.”. Sea otters are carnivores that feed on an array of marine species—mostly invertebrates like crabs, clams, urchins, snails and worms. These furry creatures are closely intertwined with the life cycle and recovery of kelp forests from urchin predation. This was my 'aha moment,' a profound realization that would set a path for the remainder of my life.". Archaeological evidence indicates that for thousands of years, indigenous peoples have hunted sea otters for food and fur. So what does this underwater relationship look like? 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. 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. #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 * Sea Otter Seaweed Kelp Octopus. 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. One of them is cute and fuzzy — the other one, less so. Sea urchins are voracious grazers of kelp. He would go on to realize that sea otters are a keystone predator that increases the abundance of a diverse array of sea life. However, these smaller urchins are a favourite food of sunflower stars. “Planet Earth,” says marine ecologist Jenn Burt, “is actually Planet Ocean.”. Kelp forests are influenced by a huge range of physical and biological factors. 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. However, sea urchins also love to eat the holdfasts of kelp. 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. But Estes didn’t understand the real meaning of what he’d seen until a meeting with veteran … By controlling the number of crabs, sea otters helped sea slugs and other tiny marine grazers 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. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that the waters of the Central Coast are rarely still. 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. The kelp can flourish, providing habitat for many ocean organisms. “It really is like that Joni Mitchell line, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’” says Burt. Image courtesy Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute. When otters are present, urchins hide in crevices and snack on kelp scraps. What kind of "eater" are manatees? 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. Case study: Sea Otters →Crabs → Sea Slugs → Micro Algae → Eelgrass. They are sensitive to temperature, ripped up by storms and affected by currents and waves. Also known as seaweed, there are red, green and brown varieties of marine algae, among others. Sea otters are another predator of urchins in the kelp forests. The complexity of trophic … They help to clean up any kelp that has fallen to the sea floor. 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). Islands with sea otters had healthy kelp forests while otter-less islands had barren sea floors littered with sea urchins but no kelp. The grazers in turn kept the eelgrass blades clean and healthy. All Rights Reserved. Otter populations are affected by the density of prey they hunt. 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. The sea slugs’ grazing kept the eelgrass blades free from a smothering coat of algae. When they did, says Burt, the insights came not only from her, but from “looking at the system with some clever modellers, from having coffees with Jim Estes and from talking with people who had seen similar things in other areas with green urchins.”. Upon returning to the surface, they float on their backs, with the rock on the stomachs. Aleutian sea otters have been in flux before. This type of relationship between a predator (sea otter), herbivore (urchin), and plant (kelp) is known as a trophic cascade. * What are the Primary Consumers? Sea otters, in turn, are equally voracious predators of sea urchins. You can help by joining our GoFundMe campaign or donating via our Donate link. 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. * Sea Otter Great White Shark Hagfish Crab. Rather than using roots — as seagrasses do, which unlike algae are true plants — they cling to the rocky seafloor using growths called holdfasts. Simply put: the sea otter consumes the sea urchin which indirectly results in safeguarding the kelp forests (that harbor life and also sequestrate carbon). When urchins are uncontrolled by predators they become larger and more abundant, feeding on kelp until little remains. They feed primarily on algae but also eat slow-moving or sessile animals. By studying how sea otters were foraging in the Elkhorn Slough—what prey species they were eating and where they were feeding—Dr. The Atomic Energy Commission had sponsored his research there ahead of a contentious nuclear test on the island. Sea otters do an excellent job of eating large sea urchins over eight centimetres in diameter, but they tend to leave behind smaller urchins. 's coastal ecology, glaciology and archaeology done in partnership with the Hakai Institute. You need an active subscription to post a comment. Sea otters eat shellfish and other invertebrates (especially clams, abalone, and sea urchins). Urchins eat kelp, and sea otters eat sea urchins. Unlike the woods on land, a kelp forest moves with the push and pull of the ocean — and so do the researchers. 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 otter benefit from this relationship because they use kelp to anchor themselves when they sleep. Observing sea otters and kelp beds on Amchitka — both onshore and during scuba dives — led Estes to question the links between them. Their predators include sea otters, starfish, wolf eels, triggerfish, and humans. 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. 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. Sea otters, by eating sea urchins, help kelp to flourish. 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. Symbiotic Relationships Natural Selection Works Cited QuIz. The sea otter eats sea urchins which if there is a large population makes the kelp endangered. 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. No! 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. Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with their tube feet, and sometimes pushing themselves with their spines. Burt’s graduate studies undertaken with the Hakai Institute in British Columbia were focused on the ecological and social impacts of sea otter recovery — including the effects that growing sea otter populations have on coastal Indigenous communities. To oblivion and back. Copyright © 2021 Sea Otter Savvy. 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. Sea Otters Are Walled in by Hungry Sharks Outside the safety of the kelp forest, California sea otters are being picked off by sharks. The growing sea otter population in B.C. Estes had seen what is now known as an urchin barren, the result of a trophic cascade. The Sea Otters have a Symbiotic Relationship with Kelp. But Estes didn’t understand the real meaning of what he’d seen until a meeting with veteran ecologist Bob Paine. These small urchins also readily devour kelp, and if their numbers swell, they begin to thin out kelp forests. 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. 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. “When you remove an organism from the system, it’s then you realize that its impact was actually quite substantial.”. Kelp forests in turn provide critical habitat and nutrients to a wide variety of creatures, from the very small to the very large. “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. Her mentors and colleagues include renowned coastal ecology experts Jane Watson and Anne Salomon. Places that are overrun with urchins are known as “urchin barrens”. “It was very interesting to learn how they give a helping hand to the apex predator in these areas, sea otters.”. 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. These urchins would usually eat the majority of the kelp; however the sea otters can prevent this. The sea otter also has an ongoing relationship with brown algae (aka kelp) which is mutualistic (Costa, 2011). Burt has years of experience exploring the ocean floor off British Columbia’s Central Coast, but scuba diving still fills her with wonder. When hungry sea otters smack spiky urchins against rocks on their chests, the mammals may also be striking a blow against climate change. What is the Apex Predator? Now numbering in the thousands, the appetite of the otters is dramatically altering large parts of the West Coast ecosystem. Researchers have also discovered that kelp forests in the northeast Pacific can be dramatically impacted by the presence of two predators. your subscription today. Kelp produce their own food through photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight and organic carbon from the environment. Image courtesy Ryan MIller. 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. Despite the Cold War considerations that placed him there, his research ended up transforming our modern understanding of coastal ecology. 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. The relationships between predators and prey vary among communities. 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. A new trophic cascade involving sea otters was recently discovered in a Central California estuary. Sea otters are such voracious eaters, West Coast crab and sea urchin fishermen have gone on record with concerns and cautions. “This is the important element of surprise in science,” says Burt. He found that about 350 kilometres to the west of Amchitka, off a remote island called Shemya. Sea urchins are related to starfish and look like small, purple hedgehogs. The truth is, we don’t even really know what we’re missing.” -Lilian Carswell, US Fish and Wildlife Service Southern Sea Otter Recovery Coordinator, High metabolism means they control numbers of their prey species. Their timing was serendipitous. The sea otter’s diet includes about 40 marine species, including urchins, crabs, clams, abalones, mussels, and snails. The crucial connection, he discovered, was sea urchins. Morona contains trogs, squirts, and zinks. Although this relationship … herbivores. 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. 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. 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. “With the near extinction of sea otters during the fur trade, our coastal ecosystems were radically downgraded and simplified. Our organization is funded entirely by grants and contributions from people like you who want to see a safer, more peaceful world for sea otters and all wildlife. 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. 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. 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. Observing sea otters and kelp beds on Amchitka — both onshore and during scuba dives — led Estes to question the links between them. * Sea Urchin Kelp Crab Large Fish. 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. 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. In places where sea otters have disappeared, sea urchins will eat the kelp forest until it’s gone. 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. Otters feed on sea urchins, which in turn keeps them from overgrazing on kelp. They have an interesting method of eating their prey. Juvenile salmon, herring and rockfish all use kelp beds for habitat, as do crabs, sea stars, abalone and other snails. Rough weather on the outer coast can keep research vessels tied up at the dock for days. Their appetite for these invertebrate species exerts a strong influence on prey size and number and how they live and move in their habitat. One of the results of Dr. Estes’ research was to designate sea otters as a “keystone species”. 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. The organisms sea otters had evolved alongside suddenly lost the main predator that kept them in check. And the Kelp provides an anchor for the Sea Otter when they sleep. Once the kelp dies it floats up and provides the sea otter with a source of food. They provide nourishment to the grazing herbivores that feed on them, such as sea urchins and abalone. That’s the bigger narrative around this research that I think is really neat.”. 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. Photo by Sebastian Kennerknecht/Minden Pictures . A population that once extended continuously along the North Pacific Rim was reduced to a few small remnant colonies. They can be as small as a human blood cell or reach lengths of over 45 metres. Sea otters dive to rocky reefs, where they collect invertebrates and also a large rock. What are the Producers? 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). By creating nearshore habitats rich in fish and other sea life, kelp beds have been significant assets to human coastal communities for thousands of years. 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 urchins are like vacuum cleaners of the ocean floor. 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