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A 2020 study looked at functional traits (blade mass per area, stiffness, strength, etc.) of 14 species of kelp and found that many of these traits evolved convergently across kelp phylogeny. With different species of kelp filling slightly different environmental niches, specifically along a wave disturbance gradient, many of these convergently ...
Giant kelp grows in dense stands known as kelp forests, which are home to many marine animals that depend on the algae for food or shelter. The primary commercial product obtained from giant kelp is alginate , but humans also harvest this species on a limited basis for use directly as food.
Some species, such as Nereocystis, are annuals, while others such as Eisenia are perennials, living for more than 20 years. [19] In perennial kelp forests, maximum growth rates occur during upwelling months (typically spring and summer) and die-backs correspond to reduced nutrient availability, shorter photoperiods, and increased storm ...
An alternative offset would be to cultivate kelp forests. Kelp can grow at 2 feet per day, 30 times faster than terrestrial plants. Planting kelp across 10% of the oceans (4.5 x the area of Australia) could provide the same offset. Additionally, the kelp would support a fish harvest of 2 megatons per year and reduce ocean acidification. Large ...
Seaweed species such as kelps provide essential nursery habitat for fisheries and other marine species and thus protect food sources; other species, such as planktonic algae, play a vital role in capturing carbon and producing at least 50% of Earth's oxygen. [3] Natural seaweed ecosystems are sometimes under threat from human activity.
Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal wetlands, lagoons ...
Connectivity of ocean surface ecosystems may be facilitated by the life history of species living there. One hypothesis is that species have pelagic stages to "escape" surface sink regions and repopulate surface source regions, where one life cycle stage drifts on surface currents in one direction, and a pelagic stage either remains ...
Many protist species can switch between asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction involving meiosis and fertilization. [6] In contrast to the cells of prokaryotes, the cells of eukaryotes are highly organised. Plants, animals and fungi are usually multi-celled and are typically macroscopic. Most protists are single-celled and microscopic.