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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.
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 growth. Chefs have started serving purple urchins to ...
In Alaskan kelp forest ecosystems, sea otters are the keystone species that mediates this trophic cascade. In Southern California, kelp forests persist without sea otters and the control of herbivorous urchins is instead mediated by a suite of predators including lobsters and large fishes, such as the California sheephead.
The sea urchins then overexploited their main food source, kelp, creating urchin barrens where no life exists. No longer having food to eat, the sea urchins populations became locally extinct as well. Also, since kelp forest ecosystems are homes to many other species, the loss of the kelp ultimately caused their extinction as well. [6]
The species is a smaller and shorter-spined cousin of the purple urchins devouring kelp forests. They produce massive numbers of sperm and eggs that fertilize outside of their bodies, allowing ...
The urchins in turn grazed the holdfasts of kelp so heavily that the kelp forests largely disappeared, along with all the species that depended on them. Reintroducing the sea otters has enabled the kelp ecosystem to be restored. [159] [160]
An area of the subtidal where the population growth of sea urchins has gone unchecked causes destructive grazing of kelp beds or kelp forests (specifically the giant brown bladder kelp, Macrocystis). The transition from kelp forest to barren is defined by phase shifts in which one stable community state is shifted to another. [2]
These urchins overgraze the seaweed habitat required for shelter and spawning for the red handfish." Another cool thing that sets this fish apart from others is the way that they reproduce.