Six years after the "Blob" rolled through the Santa Barbara Channel in California, researchers are finding lasting effects on kelp forests.
As sea temperatures rise, the nutritional value of giant kelp decreases. That has far-reaching effects for the global food chain.
Sea urchins have gotten a bad rap as destroyers of giant kelp forests, but they may help their ecosystems a lot more than they hurt them.
Giant kelp forests offer safe haven to all sorts of invertebrates. A new study shows those creatures give the kelp something in return.
"Essentially, you're getting more stability from having more species than you are from having more patches of reef where those species live."
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