How many species of kelp are there?
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Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera.
Kelp
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Macrocystis pyrifera, commonly known as giant kelp or giant bladder kelp, is a species of kelp (large brown algae), and one of four species in the genus "Macrocystis". Giant kelp is common along the coast of the eastern Pacific Ocean, from Baja California north to southeast Alaska, and is also found in the southern oceans near South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Individual algae may grow to more than long at a rate of as much as per day. Giant kelp grows in dense stands known as kelp forests, which are home to many marine animals that depend on the algae for food or shelter. The primary commercial product obtained from giant kelp is alginate, but humans also harvest this species on a limited basis for use directly as food, as it is rich in iodine, potassium, and other minerals. It can be used in cooking in many of the ways other sea vegetables are used, and particularly serves to add flavor to bean dishes.
Macrocystis pyrifera
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The largest marine algae are kelp species, which include bull kelp ("Durvillaea antarctica"), which can reach over long and is thought to be the strongest kelp in the world. As many as 47 individual plants can live on , and they can grow at a day. Kelp that is broken off its anchor provides a valuable food source for many animals, as well as providing a method of oceanic dispersal for animals such as invertebrates to travel across the Southern Ocean by riding floating kelp.
Wildlife of Antarctica
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Known to be important ecosystem components that are sensitive to anthropogenic stressors, eelgrass and kelp species are commonly recognized indicators of aquatic vegetation health.
There are twenty six species of kelp which grow along Washington’s shorelines, which makes it one of the highest sites of kelp diversity in the world.
Changes in the oceans kelp have direct effect on other species. This is particularly due to the unique three-dimensional habitats that the plants provide for invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals. Widespread loss of kelp throughout Puget Sound would have repercussions for the marine ecosystem as a whole.
Environmental issues in Puget Sound
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Kelps are primarily associated with temperate and arctic waters worldwide. Of the more dominant genera, "Laminaria" is mainly associated with both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and the coasts of China and Japan; "Ecklonia" is found in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; and "Macrocystis" occurs throughout the northeastern and southeastern Pacific Ocean, Southern Ocean archipelagos, and in patches around Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The region with the greatest diversity of kelps (>20 species) is the northeastern Pacific, from north of San Francisco, California, to the Aleutian Islands, Alaska.
Kelp forest
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Although kelp forests are unknown in tropical surface waters, a few species of "Laminaria" have been known to occur exclusively in tropical deep waters. This general absence of kelp from the tropics is believed to be mostly due to insufficient nutrient levels associated with warm, oligotrophic waters. One recent study spatially overlaid the requisite physical parameters for kelp with mean oceanographic conditions has produced a model predicting the existence of subsurface kelps throughout the tropics worldwide to depths of 200 m. For a hotspot in the Galapagos Islands, the local model was improved with fine-scale data and tested; the research team found thriving kelp forests in all eight of their sampled sites, all of which had been predicted by the model, thus validated their approach. This suggests that their global model might actually be fairly accurate, and if so, kelp forests would be prolific in tropical subsurface waters worldwide. The importance of this contribution has been rapidly acknowledged within the scientific community and has prompted an entirely new trajectory of kelp forest research, particularly emphasizing the potential for a spatial refuge from climate change also the explanations to evolutionary patterns of kelps worldwide.
Kelp forest
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The Coelopidae or kelp flies are a family of Acalyptratae flies (order Diptera), they are sometimes also called seaweed flies, though both terms are used for a number of seashore Diptera. Fewer than 40 species occur worldwide. The family is found in temperate areas, with species occurring in the southern Afrotropical, Holarctic, and Australasian (which has the most species) regions.
Coelopidae
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"Alaria" the second largest genus of Laminariales, with about 17 currently recognized species. However, due to its highly plastic morphology, the kelp has over 100 specific and subspecific names, which have arisen since it was first described in 1830. These synonyms have been tailored down to the present species through genetic comparisons.
Alaria (alga)
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There are five subspecies of kelp gull. The African subspecies "L. d. vetula" is sometimes split as the Cape gull, "L. vetula". It has a more angular head and a smaller shorter bill. The adult has a dark eye, whereas the nominate kelp gull usually has a pale eye. Young Cape gulls have almost identical plumage to similarly aged kelp gulls.Kelp gulls are omnivores like most "Larus" gulls, and they will scavenge as well as seek suitable small prey. They gather on landfills and a sharp increase in population is therefore considered as an indicator for a degraded environment. Kelp gulls have been observed feeding on live right whales since at least 1996. The kelp gull uses its powerful beak to peck down centimetres into the skin and blubber, often leaving the whales with large open sores, some of which have been observed to be half a meter in diameter. This predatory behavior has been documented in Argentinian waters, and continues today. At rocky sites along the southern African coast, such as at Boulders Beach in Cape Town, kelp gulls ("Larus dominicanus vetula") can be seen picking up shellfish and repeatedly flying up several meters and dropping them onto the rocks below in order to break them open. They have also been reported pecking the eyes out of seal pups on the coast of Namibia before attacking the blind seals in a group.
Kelp gull
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Kelp may develop dense forests with high production, biodiversity and ecological function. Along the Norwegian coast these forests cover 5800 km, and they support large numbers of animals. Numerous sessile animals (sponges, bryozoans and ascidians) are found on kelp stipes and mobile invertebrate fauna are found in high densities on epiphytic algae on the kelp stipes and on kelp holdfasts. More than 100,000 mobile invertebrates per square meter are found on kelp stipes and holdfasts in well-developed kelp forests (Christie et al., 2003). While larger invertebrates and in particular sea urchins "Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis" (O.F. Müller) are important secondary consumers controlling large barren ground areas on the Norwegian coast, they are scarce inside dense kelp forests.
Kelp
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Monterey Bay Aquarium displays 35,000 animals belonging to over 550 species in of water. Filtered seawater from Monterey Bay is pumped into the Kelp Forest and other exhibits at per minute. At night, unfiltered seawater (or "raw seawater") is used for the Kelp Forest exhibit to maintain its realistic appearance. The use of unfiltered seawater allows animals to grow in the aquarium's plumbing so it must occasionally be cleaned with tools called pigs, which blast through the pipes under pressure to remove organisms and debris. Control systems that maintain this seawater system and other life support components for the animals are mostly automated, tracking various chemical parameters and reducing the likelihood for human error during repetitive tasks such as filter media backwashing. The seawater system is controlled by more than 10,000 data points.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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Through the 19th century, the word "kelp" was closely associated with seaweeds that could be burned to obtain soda ash (primarily sodium carbonate). The seaweeds used included species from both the orders Laminariales and Fucales. The word "kelp" was also used directly to refer to these processed ashes.
Kelp