7 articles
A 1,900-kilometre arc of volcano, fog and kelp strung between Alaska and Siberia — the coastline that taught ecologists how sea otters hold kelp forests together.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
A trophic cascade happens when a predator's removal rewrites an entire ecosystem. The sea otter–urchin–kelp story is ecology's classic case — here's how it works.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Sea otters are strangers at Catalina — so when one appeared over Tidewright's restoration block, we built a dawn count around him. What the survey found.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The California sheephead is a sex-changing kelp-forest wrasse whose jaws keep sea urchins in check. Learn its life history, role and recovery story.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Sea otters eat a quarter of their body weight a day — much of it sea urchins. How this small predator became the kelp forest's most famous keystone species.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Two years after Tidewright reseeded an urchin barren off the Monterey Peninsula, a raft of sea otters moved in. Field notes on what that return really signals.
Jack Callum ·
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 ·