Structured profiles of the species that build, inhabit and depend on kelp forests — from giant kelp to sea otters, urchins to weedy seadragons.
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California sea lions are the kelp coast's most boisterous residents — acrobatic, intelligent and climate-sensitive. Ecology, biology and the Channel Islands nursery.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Dungeness crab species profile: the life cycle from drifting larva to fishing pot, sand-flat and kelp-edge habitat, moulting growth and fishery stewardship.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the garibaldi, California's blazing orange state marine fish — a fiercely territorial damselfish that gardens algae on the kelp forest floor.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The giant green anemone is a solar-powered predator of Pacific tidepools and kelp-forest edges. Its biology, symbiosis and decades-long life.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The gumboot chiton is the world's largest chiton — a hand-long, magnetite-toothed grazer nicknamed the wandering meatloaf. Meet the kelp coast's gentle giant.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The harbour seal is the temperate kelp coast's most widespread pinniped — a shy true seal found from California to the Baltic. Facts, ecology and how to watch them.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Kelp crabs graze the very forest they live in. How Pugettia producta clips, prunes and cleans kelp fronds — and why predators keep the shears in check.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Nudibranchs are the jewels of the kelp forest: shell-less sea slugs in startling colours. Learn the key groups, the star species and how to find them.
Tom Okafor ·
The leopard shark is a spotted, harmless houndshark of Pacific bays and kelp edges. Biology, behaviour and the famous warm-water aggregations.
Tom Okafor ·
The lingcod is not a cod at all — a big-headed, voracious ambush predator of Pacific kelp reefs, famous for blue-green flesh and fiercely guarded nests.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Norris's top snail spends its whole life on giant kelp — a large red-brown top snail found in no habitat but the southern California kelp forest.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A field guide to finding the ochre sea star, reading the mussel line it maintains, and understanding what its recovery after wasting disease tells us.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Tochuina tetraquetra, the orange-peel nudibranch, is one of the world's largest sea slugs — a cold-water giant that hunts sea pens and smells faintly of watermelon.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Pāua, New Zealand's iridescent abalone, is a taonga species, a prized kaimoana and a carefully managed fishery. Its biology and cultural story.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the world's largest abalone — a kelp-eating giant sea snail of the Pacific coast. Its biology, fishery history and the road to recovery.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sieve kelp (Agarum clathratum) wears a blade full of holes nobody has fully explained — biology of this Arctic kelp and the riddle of the holes.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) is the reef's top urchin predator. Its biology, fishery and role in stopping barrens — a species profile.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Sea squirts look like alien machinery but land among our closest living relatives. Meet the stalked tunicates of kelp understories — anatomy, role and invaders.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Strawberry anemone Corynactis californica: the cloning corallimorph that carpets kelp forest reefs — how it feeds, clones and spreads.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The sunflower sea star was the kelp forest's great urchin hunter. Wasting disease erased billions of them — and the consequences reshaped coastlines.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The tiger rockfish is a long-lived, vividly banded Pacific rockfish of deep rocky reefs and deep kelp-forest edges — beautiful, slow-growing and easily overlooked.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The wavy turban snail is the big, armoured grazer of southern California kelp forests — a hand-sized shell with a built-in door and a small fishery of its own.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Winged kelp (Alaria esculenta) is the wave-exposure specialist of Atlantic shores — and a mild, edible kelp. Its biology, range and kitchen appeal.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The wolf eel is not an eel and nothing to fear — a devoted, den-dwelling wolffish that crushes sea urchins for a living and guards its eggs for months.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·