Atlas8 min read
Anacapa Island: Kelp Forests in the Shadow of the Mainland
Anacapa is the nearest of the Channel Islands — an hour from Ventura, a world away underwater. Its kelp beds, conservation wins and how to dive them.
Tom Okafor ·
#marine-protected-areas
11 articles
Atlas8 min read
Carmel Bay: Stillwaters, Giant Kelp and Four Decades of Protection
Carmel Bay pairs giant kelp with some of California's oldest marine protection. Explore its reefs, Stillwater Cove and what decades of sanctuary bought.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Copper Rockfish: The Long-Lived Reef Resident That Needs Kelp to Hide
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 ·
Atlas12 min read
The Isle of Man: A Kelp Forest Census in the Irish Sea
Inside the Irish Sea's kelp island — the Manx survey tradition, marine nature reserves, and kelp beds where northern and southern species overlap.
Tom Okafor ·
Science9 min read
Designing Marine Protected Areas That Kelp Forests Can Actually Use
Reserve design is arithmetic: how big, how far apart, which reefs. The principles that decide whether an MPA network actually saves kelp forests.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Science9 min read
Marine Protected Areas That Talk to Each Other: The Science of Networks
A single marine reserve protects what lives inside it. A network of reserves, sized and spaced for drifting larvae, can protect a whole coastline. Here's the science.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas7 min read
Sardinia: Cystoseira Forests on the Granite and Karst of the Tyrrhenian
A granite-and-limestone island ringed by brown-algal canopies, Posidonia meadows and marine reserves — the Mediterranean's canopy kelp story, up close.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas8 min read
Sicily: The Mediterranean's Great Algal Forests Around Volcanic Isles
Sicily's volcanic islands carry the Mediterranean's richest Cystoseira forests — brown canopies in coral-clear water. A coastal atlas guide to seeing them.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas9 min read
Kelp Coasts of Montenegro: Cystoseira Forests in the Bay of Kotor's Shadow
Montenegro's short, mountainous coast holds the Adriatic's southern Cystoseira canopies — drowned-karst bays, rising urchin pressure, and its first young marine parks.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas9 min read
The Albanian Riviera Underwater: Karst Reefs and Algal Forests of the Ionian Coast
Albania's Ionian shore is one of the Mediterranean's least-mapped algal coasts — karst reefs, Cystoseira canopies, and the single marine park of Karaburun-Sazan.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Blue Carbon11 min read
The Carbon Value of Marine Protected Areas
Marine protected areas shelter the ocean's stored carbon. Here's where that carbon sits, what protection actually saves, and whether it can earn credits.
Priya Raman ·