Forests in the Sea

My name is Garibaldi. This is my home. Isn’t it beautiful?

People once tried to catch me and put me into a small tank. Can you imagine that? I would have died of claustrophobia. Pardon the big word. It means dread of tight places.

But I am safe now. I was made California’s state marine fish, and now I am protected.

If you wish to learn about my lovely home and meet some of my neighbors, please read about the [Forests in the Sea]

VISITORS to the groves of California’s giant coast redwoods stand and gaze up in silent wonder. Surrounded by the huge trunks towering upward, the leafy canopy high overhead, the shafts of light slanting down through this green ceiling, you feel small and insignificant. With the silence, the stillness, the shafts of light so dramatically defined against the shade of the great forest engulfing you​—a feeling of reverential awe steals over you. Many relate to these forests of giant redwoods.

Not so many relate to forest giants of another kind. They stand not on the coast but just off the coast of California. They, too, tower upward, spread a canopy overhead, with shafts of light penetrating down into the gloom of their environment. There also is a silence, a stillness, and light beams that add a haunting beauty to the forest surrounding you​—and similar feelings of wonder and awe wash over you.

This forest has no trees, but fronds; no trunks, but stipes; no leaves, but blades; no roots, but holdfasts. This forest is underwater. Its fancy name is Macrocystis pyrifera, its common one is giant kelp​—brown algae and “the largest and fastest-growing marine plant in the world.” Visitors to its forests must carry their air with them, so they don scuba gear and also wet suits to protect against the cold of the sea. And if they wish to take away more than memories, they must carry with them underwater cameras and artificial lighting.

Giant kelp starts out microscopically small. Spores attach themselves to rocks up to a hundred feet deep, develop into microscopic male and female plantlets, which combine sperm and eggs to produce an embryo.a From these embryos fronds grow upward; spaghettilike cords grow downward. The fronds reach for the surface and sunlight, the cords glue tightly to rocks and anchor the plants in place. Called haptera, these cords grow into large bundles and are known as holdfasts.

As the fronds grow they add blades with gas-filled floats to keep themselves headed for the surface of the sea. There they continue to grow, spreading out to form dense canopies. Each frond may live only six months, but new ones grow up from the holdfast. The whole kelp plant can live for five years or more. It absorbs nutrients throughout its whole supple structure​—blades, stipes, and holdfasts.

And the fronds grow up to two feet a day! They may grow a hundred feet or more to reach the surface, then add another hundred feet to form the floating canopy. It is through these canopies of floating kelp that shafts of sunlight penetrate to add an ethereal beauty, an otherworldliness, to this underwater realm.

A kelp bed teems with life. Scientists claim that just one mature kelp plant can support over a million organisms. Some 178 species live in the holdfasts alone​—crabs, nudibranchs, brittle stars, worms, and others. In all, an estimated 800 species live in and around a kelp bed, using it as food, shelter, or hunting grounds. Starfish, anemones, jellyfish, moray eels, and many fish frequent the kelp beds. One very pugnacious little fellow is the bright-orange garibaldi​—also distinguished as California’s state marine fish.

Late in the 1950’s many of the California kelp forests were near extinction. Warmer seas will kill kelp, and storms tear them loose from their holdfasts, but the main threat was from the sea urchin. It was, as it often is, man’s doing. Kelco corporation’s news release explains:

“Sea urchins are spiney marine creatures that feed on kelp holdfasts, fronds and young plants. The near decimation of the sea urchin’s most effective natural enemy, the sea otter, by large-scale hunting in earlier years had upset the ecological balance of the kelp beds. Urchins, left free to satisfy their appetites on kelp began reproducing unchecked and devoured vast stretches of kelp forest. Urchins were recorded as moving up to 30 feet a month through the kelp beds.”

But the remedy was also man’s doing. The sea otter became protected, their numbers increased, the sea urchins decreased, and the kelp forests are recovering. As Kelco reports: “Today, our kelp forests are beginning to near the generous boundaries occupied some sixty years ago. The ecological balance is being restored, and a once endangered natural resource has been reborn.”

And, with this rebirth, divers once more glide through the kelp jungles and with cameras clicking bring back to us a small measure of the glories to be found in these forests in the sea.

[Footnotes]

[Full-page picture on page 17]

[Pictures on page 18]

Sea Otter

Sea Urchins

Holdfast

When Kelp Comes Ashore

GIANT kelp is more involved in your life than you think. An article in Oceanus, by marine biologists Ron H. McPeak and Dale A. Glantz, gives information on how kelp gets from the ocean and into the lives of most of us. It is harvested along the California coast from San Diego north to Carmel.

In productive beds it may be cut three times a year. Modern harvesting vessels are pushed stern first through the beds. Reciprocating blades mounted at the base of a conveyor system operate like a seagoing lawn mower, cutting the floating fronds of the kelp canopy three feet below the surface.a The conveyor carries the cut kelp aboard. In one day a harvesting vessel can reap as much as 550 metric tons. In California the kelp industry has harvested as much as 156,000 metric tons in one year.

The kelp forest is not damaged by this harvesting. The still-submerged part of the kelp is where sexual reproduction occurs. Also, buoyancy and photosynthesis occur the entire length of the fronds. The removal of the thick canopy lets in more sunlight, which stimulates the growth of the new fronds that are beneath the surface. Soon a new canopy is formed, and another harvest is in the making.

When kelp comes ashore, it goes far beyond the coastline. Its products find their way into your kitchen, dining room, and bathroom medicine cabinet. They find their way into feed for livestock and poultry and into fertilizer for crops. Chemicals from kelp end up in the products of industry.

Kelp’s most important contribution is algin. It was first discovered by a British pharmacist in 1883. But it was not until 1929 that Kelco, a San Diego company, became the world’s first producer of algin products. Now the annual sales of these products manufactured in California exceed $35 million. Their uses are legion. “They thicken, smooth, emulsify, stabilize, gelatinize or create a film when combined with other substances.” After giving this information, Sport Diver magazine elaborates:

“Many brewers use alginates to form tougher beer bubbles, making for a longer-lasting foam head. Alginates keep cosmetic creams from separating and help maintain ice cream’s smoothness. Part of the taste and texture of chocolate milk drinks and glazed doughnuts are derived from alginates. They do everything from coating paper to improve its printing quality to making it greaseproof.

“As if those weren’t enough uses, it impregnates fabrics to help retard burning. Other forms are used in laundry starches and textile print pastes. Some pharmaceuticals contain algin, as do certain adhesives, rubber products, wallboard cements and auto polishes.”

Harvesting of the giant kelp is regulated by the California State Fish and Game Commission. May the commission do its job well to safeguard kelp from human exploitation, and may the delightful sea otters protect it from the sea urchins, that the beauty of its forests may continue to dazzle our eyes and its products continue to tickle our palates.