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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.
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 veterinarian who lives in Berkeley, California is part of a crew of volunteers who swim, snorkel and dive armed with pick axes and hammers on a sole mission: To crush purple urchins that ...
If left unchecked by predators, urchins multiple quickly and can eat through entire forests of kelp plants, leaving behind dead zones known as urchin barrens. Rock lobsters are one of the few animals that are able to eat urchins due to the echinoderm's spines, which release an irritating toxin when stimulated, and overfishing of the rock ...
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 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]
Once Kina populations become out of control, kelp forest can be entirely eaten away, leaving bare rocks, also known as Kina Barrens. [7] A notable example of a Kina Barren is the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, which after also experiencing overfishing, has been almost entirely stripped of other marine life.
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]