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The Daily Bucket - “Help the Kelp!”: March Salish Sea news [1]

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Date: 2023-03-30

Great Blue heron on kelp bed off the San Juan islands

For our Daily Bucket today: the latest in my intermittent local news series.

This month’s focus is on kelp, a seaweed with many critical ecosystem roles, but which is declining at an unprecedented rate, especially along the West coast of North America, due to human activity.

March 2023

NEWS FROM THE SALISH SEA, PACIFIC NORTHWEST The Salish Sea is a bioregion in western North America, composed of an inland waterway, many islands, and the surrounding watershed of towering forested mountains, big rivers and their floodplains. This bioregion has a mild climate and diverse habitats, but the wealth of nature and wildlife is threatened by human activity and population pressure. Metropolitan development occupies much of the lowlands, from Olympia, Washington through Seattle, Everett, Bellingham and north into Vancouver, British Columbia. Anthropogenic climate change is amplifying environmental problems here as elsewhere. HERE ARE RECENT STORIES EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY IN THIS REGION.

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There are many species of kelp in this region, but most abundant and important in the Salish Sea is Bull Kelp, Nereocystis (on the outer coast and south to California, Giant Kelp, Macrocystis, dominates). Kelp forests are among the most productive ecosystems in the world’s oceans.

Nereocystis canopy

Why are they so important? Kelp forests….

sequester 20 times as much carbon dioxide as terrestrial forests, by acre, mitigating global warming

are a highly productive foundational species, absorbing nutrients and light to create food for animals throughout nearby ecosystems

provide shelter and food for thousands of vertebrate and invertebrate species, and are especially critical as a nursery for juvenile fish and marine mammals

protect shorelines by slowing wave action and erosion, and absorbing urban pollutant runoff

However kelp forests are declining in many areas of the world. In California, there’s been a major collapse, as much as 95% loss, although in the past year or so cooler upwelling water is supporting regrowth in some areas for now. In the Salish Sea, declines vary by region, with the worst loss in south Puget Sound, approximately 80%.

Kelp forests thrive in cold nutrient-rich water. For Bull kelp, an annual seaweed, individuals start each spring as tiny spores, gluing onto rock in water no deeper than about 130 feet, growing upward toward the lighted surface over the spring and summer, then fragmenting in winter storms to drift away. They grow prodigiously fast, as much as 18 inches a day, forming mats of fronds on the surface. So why are they dying off?

Warming oceans.

Kelp reproduction and growth slows and then stops as water temps rise above 20°C (68°F). At the same time, warming water speeds up the metabolism of animals that eat kelp (such as urchins) and grow over fronds blocking light (like bryozoans) . Warmer water is also linked to the devastating seastar viral epidemic that began in 2013 killing off vast numbers of these invertebrates, including Sunflower seastars. Sunflower stars, Pycnopodia helianthoides, nearly extinct now, play an essential role in controlling the population of sea urchins, which are now mowing down kelp, creating what are known as “urchin barrens”. Additionally, the loss of Sea Otters, their other major predator, who were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th c, has allowed urchin populations to explode in numbers.

Even though ocean temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, various groups are working to reverse the decline of kelp forests in the Salish Sea. The biggest kelp die offs are caused by episodic heat waves like the “Blob” of 2013-18 and the extreme heatwave of 2021 that killed a billion intertidal invertebrates in Salish Sea waters. One approach to stabilizing kelp beds is to provide assistance tiding them over after such events.

These are some recent news stories about that and other strategies to help the kelp.

‘Help the kelp!’ Northwest groups try to aid struggling kelp forests, including: “The Puget Sound Restoration Fund has reported some initial success with this strategy of anchoring twine seeded with small kelp to the seafloor on the west side of Puget Sound. The nonprofit just got an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to scale up outplanting projects at scattered sites throughout the Sound.”

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Study: Sunflower sea stars could help bring back kelp forests “At Friday Harbor Labs in Washington, efforts are already underway to rear baby sea stars in captivity with the hopes of eventually reintroducing them into the wild. … “If you were to have a sea star dropped into an urchin barren, we have evidence now that suggests they're going to just start eating their way through it,” Galloway said. …. When found together, sea otters and sunflower seas stars are a kelp forest predatory dream team. Otters will eat bigger urchins, abalone and snails, but those animals can hide by sneaking into cracks in rocks. “In a functioning kelp forest ecosystem, Pycnopodia will play an important role in foraging for these herbivores in the cracks,” Galloway said. “They can slither into the smallest cracks, and they’ll eat the smaller urchins that sea otters won’t bother with.” More: What happened to sunflower sea star? This lab is working to find out (the following video shows Sunflower stars in action, as well as the breeding project) x x YouTube Video

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Banking on the Seaweed Rush (ie. seaweed aquaculture) “Advocates like Doumeizel cast seaweed as the savior of many social and environmental woes: the industry requires no fresh water, pesticides, or fertilizers, they note; it doesn’t take up any land and can overlap with other uses of the ocean like offshore wind farms; its low-tech operation can help to alleviate poverty and provide jobs for women in the developing world; and some companies, including Cascadia, are collaborating with Indigenous communities. Seaweed creates a rich habitat for sea life, soaks up CO₂, counteracts acidification, and absorbs run-off nutrients.”

(Cascadia Seaweed) … “But the industrial boom also makes many wary. Past rapid expansions in aquaculture have not been rosy: fish farms have spread disease; shrimp aquaculture has plowed down mangroves to make room for farms. Will industrial-scale seaweed farms, some wonder, also bring hazards like imported diseases or unwanted ecosystem changes, or see big business grabbing leases to large swaths of the ocean?”

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The Vashon Kelp Forest Project (off Vashon Island, south Puget Sound near Seattle) “The Vashon Kelp Forest will grow new seaweed for two purposes: Some species of kelp will be grown and harvested to be used in a range of eco-friendly products, Other species of kelp will be grown and deliberately not harvested with the aim of restoring the kelp forest around Vashon (particularly on the north end of the island). All kelp grown for harvest or restoration will be native species specific to the Puget Sound and Colvos Passage.”

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Sea otter in kelp bed at Race Rocks near Vancouver Island BC

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THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

🦠 Sunny and warming in the PNW today. Temps in 40s and 50s. Moderate breeze. WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?

(Note: I will be away for the next 2½ weeks so no buckets from me during that time)

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/30/2156103/-The-Daily-Bucket-Help-the-Kelp-March-Salish-Sea-news

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