What´s been learned from nearly 40 years of studying sea otters, sea urchins, and kelp?
(keynote)The trophic interaction among sea otters, sea urchins, and kelp is one of the earliest and best-known examples of a “trophic” cascade, thanks to the large-scale ecosystem disturbance of the near extinction and subsequent recovery of sea otters from the Pacific maritime fur trade. Throughout much of the coastal northeast Pacific Ocean, otter-dominated ecosystems are characterized by kelp forests whereas otter-free systems are characterized by deforested sea urchin barrens. Adding sea otters to the otter-free systems or removing them from the otter-dominated systems, results in a strongly punctuated shift. Jim Estes will discuss the mechanisms underlying these transitions, the influence on other species and ecosystem processes, the unexpected recent collapse of the sea otter-kelp forest ecosystem in southwest Alaska, and insights and conclusions that have emerged from almost 40 years of work on the interaction dynamics between sea otters and kelp forests and the potential releva
