Tag Archives: california

Mussel Mass

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Facilitation alters climate change risk on rocky shores (2022) Jurgens et al. 2022, Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3596

Image credit: Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

The Crux

Climate change has a marked effect on the environment, and in most cases will be (and already is) devastating to natural systems. However, some areas (and the organisms within them) are less vulnerable to harm than others. Biogenic habitats, or habitats created by a given species which reduce physical stress for other species that live in them (more in Did You Know?), are predicted to reduce the harmful effects of climate change. In particular, they can reduce heat and desiccation.

There have been an abundance of studies on the positive effects of biogenic habitats, but little has been done to explore if these habitats can provide protection against climate change. Today’s authors utilized a marine system to understand how biogenic habitats respond to climate change, allowing for predictions of what will happen to these systems.

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Populations Can’t Grow without Homes

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Sea otters are one of many charismatic species found along the California coast, yet recovery doesn’t seem to be helping them. Is it something about their habitat that is preventing population growth? (Image Credit: Mike Baird, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped)

Gaps in kelp cover may threaten the recovery of California sea otters  (2018) Nicholson et al., Ecography, DOI:10.1111/ecog.03561

The Crux

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the fur trade was a massive industry in North America. As a result, many species were hunted and trapped to near extinction. The California sea otter (Enhydra lutris) was reduced in population to less than 50 total individuals. The enactment of the Internation Fur Treaty allowed the species (and others) to come back from the brink of extinction, and they now number over 3200 individuals and are spread across 525km of the California coast. Interestingly, although the population is recovering, it has not bounced back as quickly as other protected mammals living in the same habitat. The California sea lion, for example, has a maximum population growth rate more than twice that of the sea otter (11.7% compared to 5%).

Despite the remarkable recovery of the species, the sea otters occupy less than a quarter of their historic range and have not expanded along the coast in 20 years. The authors of this paper wanted to investigate what it is about the sea otters and their habitat that is slowing this population’s growth rate and spread along the coast.

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An Abridged History of the California Wildfires

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California is ablaze, again. So why is this part of the world so notorious for catching fire? (Image Credit: Forest Service, USDA, Public Domain Mark 1.0, Image Cropped)

Recently, I was looking for skiable snow in central Norway when I bumped into a chatty Norwegian man. When I told him I was Californian, he asked why my state was always on fire. The story demanded vocabulary beyond my grasp of the language, so this story is for your benefit, my random friendly Norwegian. This is a story of resource mismanagement, of urbanization, Pocahontas, and a policy that was a bear’s favor.

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