Date: 10/27/2009
A new study showing the impact of climate change on Southern California kelp forests by San José State Associate Professor Michael Graham and colleagues has been published in Nature magazine and the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Biological Sciences. Graham works at Moss Landing Marine Labs, a consortium of seven California State University campuses.
Nature said the study "is an investigation of how the distribution and productivity of giant kelp have changed since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago ... The significance of giant kelp is that it is a foundation species -- a dominant primary producer -- that creates vast submarine forests in coastal areas ... These kelp forests constitute ecosystems on which a multitude of other species depend ... The broad picture is of an apparent increase in biomass of three times or so from glacial-maximum levels until about 7,500 years ago, followed by a rapid fall of as much as 70 percent to today's levels."
print
email
