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The purple sea urchin, along with sea otters and abalones, is a prominent member of the kelp forest community. [18] The purple sea urchin also plays a key role in the disappearance of kelp forests that is currently occurring due to climate change; [19] when urchins completely eliminate kelp from an area, an urchin barren results.
The star fish is the main purple urchin predator. ... Some believe the only way to restore kelp is to reduce the purple urchins, which can go dormant for years only to remerge and eat new kelp ...
If Purple Sea Urchins eat all the kelp, other herbivores will die of starvation, and Paralabrax clathratus will surely follow, as they cannot ingest the urchins due to their spiny exteriors. [18] Another invasive species along the coast of California and Baja is wreaking havoc on Kelp Bass “recruitment,” which is when newly settled ...
The genus of this species has transitioned back and forth between Asterina and Patiria since its inclusion in Fisher's 1911 North Pacific Asteroidea monograph. [5] However, recent revisions based on molecular systematics have constrained Asterina and identified Patiria as a complex of three closely related species in the Pacific, including P. miniata, P. pectinifera in Asia and P. chilensis in ...
California sheephead are ecologically valuable as keystone predators on purple sea urchins and red sea urchins, keeping them from overgrazing kelp forests. [21] Thus, where they are present, sheephead contribute to the growth and biodiversity of kelp forests, and the corresponding increase in populations of other commercially valuable fish ...
For example, mechanical dredging of kelp destroys the resource and dependent fisheries. Other forces also threaten some seaweed ecosystems; for example, a wasting disease in predators of purple urchins has led to an urchin population surge which has destroyed large kelp forest regions off the coast of California. [4]
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The coast of Southern California is known as a source of high quality uni, with divers picking sea urchin from kelp beds in depths as deep as 24 m/80 ft. [85] As of 2013, the state was limiting the practice to 300 sea urchin diver licenses. [85] Though the edible Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis is found in the North Atlantic, it is not widely ...