Conservation Lecture Series Presents: Multiple Climate Stressors Push Kelp Forest Beyond Tipping Point in Northern California
Conservation Lecture Series is hosting a lecture on Thursday, July 18, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. titled "The Perfect Storm: Multiple Climate Stressors Push Kelp Forest Beyond Tipping Point in Northern California."
Please join our next Conservation Lecture Series talk that focuses on how extreme climatic events have recently impacted marine ecosystems around the world, including foundation species such as kelps. We quantify the rapid climate-driven catastrophic shift in 2014 from a previously robust kelp forest to unproductive urchin barrens in northern California. Bull kelp canopy was reduced by 93% along >350 km of coastline. Twenty years of kelp ecosystem surveys reveal the timing and magnitude of events, including mass mortalities of sea stars (2013-) and red abalone (2017-), extent of nearshore ocean warming (2014-2017), and the sea urchin population explosion (2015-). These stressors led to the unprecedented and long-lasting decline of the kelp forest and the ecosystem services is supports such as the red abalone and sea urchin fisheries.
Date: Thursday, July 18, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Register to view online.
Questions? Contact: Whitney.Albright@wildlife.ca.gov