A recent boom in the purple sea urchin population off the southern Oregon Coast appears to have had an indirect and negative impact on the gray whales that usually forage in the region, a new study shows.
A recent boom in the purple sea urchin population off the southern Oregon Coast appears to have had an indirect and negative impact on the gray whales that usually forage in the region, a new study shows.
When urchin numbers rise, the spiky marine invertebrates can devour kelp forests that are a critical habitat for zooplankton, the tiny aquatic organisms that are the primary prey of many marine animals. Damaged kelp forests lead to reductions in zooplankton, and with fewer zooplankton to feed on, gray whales spend less time foraging there, researchers with Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute found.
“This study shows the cascading impacts of a change in the coastal ocean ecosystem in a way that has not been documented before,” said the study’s lead author, Lisa Hildebrand, a doctoral candidate in the Marine Mammal Institute’s Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory. “These impacts extend indirectly to a top predator, the gray whale, and it affects them in a negative way.”
Read more at Oregon State University
Image: Unhealthy kelp forest damaged by sea urchins. Credit: GEMM Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University.
