Kelp Information
Organization That have Kelp Affiliations
KelpKulture UCLA
Website - https://kelpkulture.com/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@kelpkulture/videos
Get Inspired
Scripps
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Kelp Forest Reason for Collapse
- Loss of Pacific purple urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) predators including sea otters (Enhydra lutris) and sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides)
- Warming oceans, ocean acidification, etc.
- Other Reasons?
Photo Credit: https://farallones.noaa.gov/eco/kelp/decline.html
Kelp Taxonomy:
- Domain - Eukaryota
- Kindom - Chromalveolata or Plantae or Chromista
- Phylum - Heterokontophyta or Phaeophyta or Ochrophyta
- Class - Phaeophyceae
- Order - Laminariales
- Families- Alariaceae Chordaceae Laminariaceae Lessoniaceae Phyllariaceae Pseudochordaceae
Giant Kelp Information:
Size - Up to 100 feet or 30 meters and in ideal conditions can grow to 175-200 feet or 53 meters
(Giant Kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera)
Food - Sunlight (photosynthesis)
Locations - West Coast of North America, as well as Chile, Peru, the Falkland Islands, South Africa, and around Australia, New Zealand, and the sub-Antarctic islands
There are about 30 different genera of kelp the most common are: giant kelp, southern kelp, sugarwack, and bull kelp
Kelp Features:
Blade - Leaf like structure, collects sunlight for photosynthesis and can collect sunlight on both sides
Stipe - Stem or trunk to transport nutrients to the holdfast below and the blades above
Gas Bladder (Pneumatocyst) - Floats on the stem. Gas-fillled section of the stipe keeps the kelp upright and oriented towards the surface. Filled with Nitrogen, Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide
Frond - Palm like leaf structure, contains pneumatocysts (gas bladder) and blades. The part above the holdfast
Holdfast - An anchor that help keep kelp to the bottom (kind of like roots but without collecting nutrients)
Haptera - Branches on the holdfast
Kelp Holdfast
Bull Kelp - Nereocystis leutkeana
Annual seaweed therefore grows from spores to maturity in a single year, some species can grow 10 inches (25.4 cm) in one day! But also dies during certain times of the year.
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Feather Boa Kelp - Egregia menziesii
Egregia menziesii houses an invertebrate species called tall-shelled seaweed limpet (Notoacmaea incessa) who lives and feed on the surface of the kelp. If you notice there are holes on the plant that is from the seaweed/kelp limpet.
