8 articles
Food produced in sunlit surface water rains down to feed the seafloor, and the seafloor recycles nutrients back up. How benthic-pelagic coupling runs a kelp forest.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Every night, billions of animals rise hundreds of metres to feed, then sink before dawn. How the largest daily migration on Earth threads through kelp food webs.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Most kelp is never grazed standing. Here's how blades become crumbs, crumbs become food, and how detritus quietly powers reefs, canyons and the carbon ledger.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios let ecologists read what reef animals actually ate — and whether kelp carbon reached them. Here's how the method works.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Kelp carbon carries a chemical fingerprint. Stable isotope analysis lets ecologists trace it from blade to grazer to fish — and test restoration claims.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A map of the kelp forest food web — from drifting fronds and grazing urchins to otters, octopus and rockfish — and why detritus powers most of it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The Arctic's first bloom happens in the dark, inside the sea ice. How sympagic algae prime the polar food web — and why thinning ice changes it all.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
How a handful of scientists — from Paine's starfish to Estes's sea otters — discovered that predators architect entire ecosystems from the top down.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·