The Unseen Pandemic beyond our shores
A domino effect of multiple stressors, by both natural or human-induced disturbances, has prompted consequential ecological imbalances in our ecosystem. While we face the realities of climate change on land, an unseen pandemic has been building up barely 24 meters below the surface of the Californian coast.
The loss of 95% of coastal Kelp habitats
Lina Kudinar
The loss of keystone predator species, such as sea stars and the Californian sea otter, has allowed for an exponential explosion in the purple sea urchin population. As barrens of purple sea urchin continue to multiply, they consume all kelp in their paths until the forests are past the point of regrowth. Diminished kelp also means less spawning of fish species that use these habitats as shelter or nurseries.
With no viable food supply and increased quantities of mouths to feed, the urchins develop a voracious appetite, transforming from docile filter-feeders into enraged zombies. Calcite deposits of their teeth and jaws enlarge with stress, allowing them to even consume small abalone or barnacles. The sea urchins that were once a commercial delicacy have lost their umami flavor and are now undesired for human consumption. But alas, they still retain their ability to survive in a dormant state, outliving the organisms and vegetation around them.
Even with human intervention, it would take 15 - 20 years just to remove all the urchins from the barren of just one reef.
Filbee-Dexter & Scheibling, Research Gate
The kelp habitats of the sea represent only 0.4% of the earths surface but generate 11.4% of the worlds ecosystem services. The Giant Kelp can grow up to 200 feet tall at a rate of 18 inches per day and can sequester over 20 times more carbon dioxide per acre than any land-based forests.
Unfortunately, the problem of sea urchin overpopulation is not limited to the waters of the North American Pacific. Urchin barrens have appeared in other cool-watered regions all over the world, replacing most of the Giant kelp and Bull Kelp habitats of the ocean.
Erika Skogg, Getty Images
California Sea Otters
From 1825 to 1911, sea otters from the northern and central coasts of California were harvested for their valuable pelts. The California Fur Trade was a new era of world trade in the American West. But with a booming economy came the reckless hunting of these marine animals, leading the California sea otters to rapidly disappear. These otters have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1977 and their population has not recovered to this day.
Reef Builders
Sea Star Wasting Syndrome
Various species of sea stars have experienced periods of rapid population decline every decade since 1970s. In 2013, the sea stars of the North American Pacific coast were met with a mysterious viral disease called “sea star wasting syndrome,” decimating sea stars at an unprecedented magnitude. Any star that contracts this illness will begin to form lesions followed by a decay of tissue, leading to fragmentation of the body and ultimately, death.
Norbert Wu, Minden Pictures
Purple Sea Urchin Barrens
Declines in the California sea otter and the Sunflower Starfish populations instigate a situation called “trophic cascade” in which these keystone predators were removed from the food chain, inducing higher rates of reproduction and larvae survival of their common prey, the purple sea urchin. These conditions, paired with warming of coastal waters due to climate change and their persistent lifespans, are the stimuli that have allowed urchin barrens to grow to exorbitant sizes.
We must leverage our scientific understanding of how organisms grow, heal, and thrive to find solutions that can heal the impact we have had on the world.