May 2, 2021 at 6:20 pm by Mackenzie Miller
A research team at UCSB, led by marine ecologist Dana Morton, has spent the past eight years mapping out organism interactions within the Santa Barbara Channel kelp forests to develop a detailed food web. Food webs typically illustrate any consumer-resource relationships and how biomass is transferred through a particular system.
While the kelp ecosystem is known for being rich in species, many people donât recognize the full extent of its biodiversity.Â
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Their recent publication illuminates the complex connections between organisms in the kelp forest ecosystems by including more parasites and small invertebrates. This also created a higher resolution of species interactions than past webs.Â
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In my personal opinion, the greatest coming-of-age story on Earth does not take place in a Dickens novel or a Disney movie, but rather in a white fish at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
The fish in question, called a zoarcid, looks like a creature caught in an identity crisis, too long to be a fish but too short to be an eel, its lips permanently drooping in a sullen pout. Otherwise, the fish has no real reason to be grumpy. It lives in one of the cushiest parts of the deep sea, in the shimmering waters near a hydrothermal vent that warms the freezing seas to the temperature of a kiddie pool. It enjoys a spectacular view, at the bottom of a glittering black canyon 559 miles off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. The site, called Nine North, is part of the East Pacific Rise, an underwater mountain range that stretches from the Gulf of California across the southeastern Pacific Ocean.