Structured profiles of the species that build, inhabit and depend on kelp forests — from giant kelp to sea otters, urchins to weedy seadragons.
322 articles · Browse the structured Encyclopedia →
California halibut (Paralichthys californicus) is the kelp edge's great ambush flatfish — sharp-toothed, colour-shifting and built to lunge into midwater.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Mytilus californianus builds wave-swept mussel beds that shelter hundreds of species. Glue chemistry, keystone starfish, zonation and conservation.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Panulirus interruptus is the clawless, night-hunting lobster of California kelp reefs — an urchin predator, a famous fishery, and a quiet guardian of the forest.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The canary rockfish went from overfished to rebuilt in fifteen years — one of the US west coast's most instructive fisheries recovery stories.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Cystoseira osmundacea — chain bladder kelp — strings pearl-like floats along California's subtidal rocks. Identification, biology, and why it's no true kelp.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Neobernaya spadicea, the chestnut cowry, is the only cowry native to California — a glossy chestnut shell beneath a blazing orange mantle, grazing the reef by night.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The Chilean kelp crab — jaiba marmola — is a spider-crab grazer of great kelp beds and the centre of a diver-run artisanal fishery. A species and livelihood profile.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Lessonia trabeculata, the huiro, builds Chile's great subtidal kelp forests and feeds a global alginate industry. Biology, fishery, ecology and El Niño risk.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The China rockfish is a small, blue-black, yellow-speckled reef fish that rarely leaves its crevice. Biology, identification, habits and conservation.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Cochayuyo is Chile's great edible bull kelp — a surf-loving brown alga, a market staple and an ocean-going raft. Biology, culture, harvest and rafting ecology.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the common murre, the foot-propelled pursuit diver of kelp-coast upwellings — a flying auk that hunts 100 metres down and raises chicks on bare cliffs.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The copper rockfish (Sebastes caurinus) is a cryptic, long-lived, home-ranged reef fish of Pacific kelp forests. Biology, fishery history and how it recovers.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Coralline algae are calcified red algae that paint reefs pink, cement them together and decide where young shellfish settle. Forms, ecology and climate risks.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the corkwing wrasse: a small nest-building cleanerfish of Europe's kelp forests, now caught at scale for salmon farms — biology, ID marks, reef role.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Crustose coralline algae look like pink paint on reef rock, but they are the settlement cue abalone and urchins need. CCA biology and why restoration depends on it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Cystoseira and kin built the Mediterranean's underwater forests for millennia. Why these canopy algae are retreating, and what it takes to bring them back.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Dall's porpoise is the slate-and-white speedster of the cold North Pacific, famous for its rooster-tail splash. Biology, range, speed and how to spot one.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Chorda filum is a true kelp disguised as a slippery brown string. Where the bootlace kelp grows, how a hollow cord survives a year, and its edible end.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Decorator crabs build living costumes from algae, sponges and anemones using velcro-like hairs. How the disguise works, why it evolved and where to see it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is a true flowering plant whose meadows fringe kelp forests worldwide: biology, wildlife, carbon and how meadows are restored.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Eisenia arborea, the southern sea palm, is the tree-like kelp of the California–Baja low shore. Profile of its ecology, range shifts and role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The flat abalone is a deep, flattened grazer of Oregon and northern California reefs — the most northern-centred of California's abalones, never common and rarely seen.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The flat porcelain crab packs under Pacific shore rocks by the hundred, sifting plankton with feathery mouthparts and shedding legs it can calmly regrow.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The frilled dogwinkle drills barnacles on rocky shores and famously thickens its shell when crabs patrol — a textbook case of predator-induced defence.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·