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The history of mankind’s environmental abuse has caused visible effects on the species that occupy the affected ecosystems. Interestingly, the environment itself plays a tremendous role in the biodiversity of various ecosystems. Raine Detmer, a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), has created a new mathematical model that mimics the effects of environmental stressors, specifically storms, on diverse kelp forest ecosystems.
Detmer’s research focuses on how kelp has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the ecosystem as a keystone species and how its removal by storm, mimicked by her mathematical model, influences the biodiversity of the benthic community a community of organisms that live on, in, or near the seabed, within the ecosystem. In an interview with The Bottom Line, Detmer explains her focus on the benthic kelp forest communities and how their sea-floor presence has a bottom-up influence on the rest of the ecosystem.