by Gavin MacRae | Dec 19, 2018
© Jackie Hildering, The Marine Detective
Warming waters, sea urchins are decimating kelp forests
Climate change, in tandem with a teeming sea urchin population, is killing bull kelp forests in the Salish Sea. To stem losses that already have kelp at historic lows in the Central Strait of Georgia, researchers are searching for the most heat-resistant kelp populations, and working to perfect a method of reintroducing the plants.
Increasingly, spiking summer water temperatures near the ocean’s surface are stunting bull kelp’s dandelion-like reproductive capacity. The adult plants release far fewer spores when water temperatures sit above the mid-teens. When temperatures stall above 18ºC, the plants disintegrate and die.
“The [high] temperature either ends the life of the kelp plant, or it shortens its reproductive season, those are the two options,” said Bill Heath, biologist and program director for the Comox Valley’s Project Watershed.
This article reprinted as a joint venture with Watershed Sentinel Magazine
As if things weren’t tough enough for the plants, sea urchins are also munching through kelp forests, unchecked by starfish, their natural predator. Urchin numbers exploded after a sweeping die-off of starfish in 2013, from California to Alaska, caused by a viral wasting disease (which is also suspected to be magnified by rising water temperatures). The one-two punch of warm water and hungry urchins razed kelp forests along the California coast. Across the Pacific, similar circumstances have decimated kelp forests in Tasmania.
Kelp forests are pivotal to the marine ecosystem, providing habitat, food, and shelter for a diverse spectrum of marine life. When kelp forests die, declines in salmon, rockfish, and invertebrates follow.
Some kelp forests are proving more resilient to warming ocean waters (including one kelp forest right in Vancouver harbour). Kelp beds are also persisting in areas of the North and South Strait of Georgia, where cooler, deeper water mixes with surface water in the water column.
Researchers from Project Watershed and Simon Fraser University are working to re-establish bull kelp in the Salish Sea. The project includes a host of other partners and is funded by the Pacific Salmon Foundation and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Looking for heat-resistant varieties
Braeden Schiltroth, a researcher at SFU, is working to find out why some kelp forests are better able to cope with the heat, and to identify the most heat-resistant populations.
Schiltroth’s research focuses on the early stages of the kelp’s life cycle. In kelp reproduction, the adult plant produces spores, which germinate to become a microscopic intermediary generation called gametophytes. The gametophytes produce sperm or eggs, which in turn unite to form the infant sporophyte, that will grow to become the adult plant.
Schiltroth found spore germination dropped by half above 17º, and at 20º there was complete spore death. “We do see these temperatures at some of our hot sites,” said Schiltroth, “and it’s happening relatively quickly.”
While Schiltroth is finding the hardiest kelp population, Heath is studying how to re-establish the kelp.
Spores are first collected from patches called sori on the kelp’s blades (equivalent to leaves). The spores are cultured through to the sporophyte stage, and then allowed to settle onto spools of twine and root themselves. At a test site off of Hornby Island, Heath and his team (who are also his daughter and son-in-law – kelp runs in the family) wrap the twine around larger ropes, which are fastened underwater in a grid formation. The maturing plants eventually anchor themselves to the thicker rope, and grow to become the familiar buoyant adults.
If ocean waters keep warming … Well, things get even more dicey.”
Heath is also working on getting the kelp on the seeding ropes to recruit back to the ocean floor. One problem is that urchins are scarfing the gametophytes as soon as they hit the seabed. To give the kelp a hand, Heath is experimenting with an underwater pen to keep the urchins at bay until the gametophytes can unite, form sporophytes, and root.
Schiltroth said the kelp declines are complex. “It’s what makes the research fairly difficult to do, that there are so many factors. Definitely the urchin grazing, sea star wasting has got those numbers up. Back in 2016 we had this thing called the blob, which was essentially this warm mass of ocean currents that came towards our coast, and that created a lot of warming in our area. So all these things created this perfect storm, and as you can see in California – 90% decreases in kelp in a lot of areas. We’re really starting to see a lot of the same trends, particularly on the inner Salish Sea.”
If ocean waters keep warming, Heath and Schiltroth may only be buying time. “I think we can do something by selecting thermally resistant strains of bull kelp that can withstand the kinds of summers that we’re having.” said Heath. “That’s summers as they are now. What happens if it gets even warmer? Well, things get even more dicey.”
Still, there are some reasons for optimism. Kelp is naturally prolific, and given a weather window of cooler water, Schiltroth found the plants are able to get back on track and complete their reproductive cycle. Heath also has partnering research groups eager to launch new reseeding sites.
The long-term plan is to reintroduce more heat-resistant kelp forests to a string of test sites along the Strait of Georgia. If a half-dozen or more sites could be established, Heath thinks the effect could be significant. Give the kelp a leg up, and, Heath said, “the plants can do the rest quite well.”
Gavin MacRae writes for the Watershed Sentinel
WHAT IS BULL KELP?
This article from the University of Victoria Community Mapping Collaboratory helps to explain this unique salt-water plant.
Common Names: ribbon kelp, mermaids bladder.
First nations names: In Haida, Bull Kelp is called ‘Ihqyaama’ . Hul’qumi’num: Q’am’
Identification
When bull kelp is alive it can be found floating offshore with the bulbs dipping in and out of the waves. When bull kelp is dead, it can be found on the beaches along the Pacific Coast, especially after storms or in the winter after it dies off for the year. It ranges in colour from green to brownish-yellow. It is identified by the bulb which acts as a float at the surface of the water and is attached to a long stalk (stipe) which attached on the ocean floor.
Ethnobotanical Uses
Bull kelp was used by indigenous peoples for their fishing gear and storage containers. The bulb and parts of the stipe were used to steam bend branches of fir for their bentwood halibut hooks. The solid part of the stem was used for fish lines after being soaked in fresh water, stretched and twisted for extra strength. Several could be joined together with a fisherman’s knot to make a longer line. As well, nets, ropes, harpoon lines and anchor lines were also made from Bull kelp.
Commercial companies use kelp extracts as thickener in products such as salad dressing, ice cream, hand lotion and paint. The bull kelp species is a part of the Great Brown Seaweeds which are the highest of seaweeds in iodine content, and their fiber is only partially digestible. However, their extracts, such as fucoidan, fucan, laminarin, lignanas, and alginates are exceptionally valuable in both food and medicine for its high vitamin and mineral content.
by George Le Masurier | Apr 21, 2017
Millions of people participated in a first-ever annual grassroots demonstration 47 years ago to raise awareness about environmental concerns. They called it Earth Day.
At the time, in 1970, the message focused on saving the whales and cleaning the trash out of our rivers. Greenpeace was born. The public service announcements of the era featured an American Indian saddened to find garbage in a once-pristine river full of fish, and a cute owl that said, “Give a hoot – don’t pollute.”
Then everyone drove home in big gas-guzzling cars and squirted the chlorofluorocarbons into their ovens and their hair that eventually ate holes in our atmosphere’s ozone layer. They smoked cigarettes in cars and airplanes, spreading deadly carcinogens inhaled by everyone near them, including children.
The adage reuse-recycle-reduce that every elementary student knows so well today was a foreign concept back in the days when Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, was considered a radical. Nelson’s genius was to capture the youthful anti-Vietnam War energy and shift it to environmental causes.
It wasn’t a difficult task when, in 1969, rivers like the Cuyahoga in Ohio were so full of toxic chemicals that they caught fire. The blaze and a subsequent west coast oil spill were Nelson’s inspirations.
Now that we know the dangers of second-hand smoke and that releasing hydrocarbons had led to changes in the Earth’s climate that threaten our existence, do we still need an Earth Day?
Unfortunately, yes, we do, now more than ever.
Even though we have made great strides toward reducing some of the ways we harm Earth’s life-sustaining ecosystem, the really hard work lies ahead.
Implementing a ban on single-use plastic grocery bags and teaching kids the merits of recycling are child’s play compared with bringing down human-and-animal-generated carbon emissions to a safe level.
No one seriously doubts any longer the harmful effect of our reliance on fossil fuels and the dangerous leakage of methane gas from gas and oil wells. But even though we know what’s killing us, like addicts, we can’t get our deadly dependence under control
There are hopeful signs, of course. We have started to embrace solar and wind as sources of power generation, and it has become cool to drive electric cars, especially Tesla roadsters. Widespread public pressure is mounting for the providers of electrical power to shut down coal-burning power plants.
Not everyone is pulling in the same direction, however, causing scientists to worry if we’ll make enough headway by mid-century to escape an environmental catastrophe that might someday result in extinction of the human species.
So, yes, we still need a day to both celebrate progress and create awareness of the work that lies ahead. And the whales are still in danger.
by George Le Masurier | Jan 21, 2017
For as far back as I can remember, people have warned me about the certain implosion of America. They made comparisons to fall of the Roman Empire and Sodom and Gomorrah. The unmistakable signs were everywhere, they said.
As a teenager coming of age in the midwest during the 1960s, it was the length of my hair and the music I listened to that apparently signaled the End of the World, or at least the fall of America. Trivial matters, but the top of a slippery slope, they said.
Sometime in 1965, I went to a music store in Willemar, Minnesota, with my rock and roll bandmates to find a 45 rpm copy of the Rolling Stones new hit song “Satisfaction.” When we enquired, the owner of the store physically chased us out while lecturing us on how filth, smut and evil music would damn our souls, and tear down the clean white fabric of American society.
That man was right, of course, because the America that existed in his mind was about to come crashing down.
Long hair, hippies, marijuana and rock music picked up the message of the Beat Generation and wallowed in its individual freedoms. Audacious people marched for civil rights and women’s rights. College campuses roiled in protests over an unjust war. Comedians publicly flouted four-letter words.
The collapse of America continued. Gay people started coming out. Same-sex couples demanded marriage equality. Environmentalists warned of climate change. The era of white European privilege started to fade into more diverse faces.
And, then, I’m sure the music store man would say, the final blow was delivered in 2008 when voters elected an African-American as the President of the United States. That was too much. It pushed the music store man, and millions of other people like him, over the edge, and into the waiting arms of Donald Trump.
And so, at the climax of his inauguration speech yesterday, the 45th president promised that the “American carnage stops now!”
Those “rusted-out factories” littering the landscape like “tombstones” over a post-Armageddon wasteland will be shined up and made new again. Factories will hum with workers loving their jobs. Climate change won’t exist. Men can freely assault women. Pesky journalists seeking truth will be discredited. We’ll bomb more of the people we don’t like.
We’ll chase all the bad Muslims and Mexicans out. No more racial unrest because, well, what did African-Americans have to lose, anyway?
And so, I have to admit, my music store man had a point back in 1965. My generation did take America on a slippery ride. But the tragic fall he envisioned wasn’t the expansion of human rights or a realization that the destruction of this planet might means the end of human existence. But it did, somehow, give us Trump.
The decline of America will not occur because of how America has changed over the last 50 years, and probably not at the hands of terrorists or a crazy dictator.
America is more likely to fall because a false Messiah does not understand his place, and his nation’s place, in this world. Because he sees permanence in the riches and comforts he enjoys today, and which he promises for tomorrow, not realizing they are only temporary and that he cannot turn back time.
by George Le Masurier | Aug 2, 2016
Before Victorians and other west coast residents start congratulating ourselves for producing fewer greenhouse gases per household than most other Canadians, we should pause to acknowledge that this environmental fame may be fleeting. Because if Premier Christy Clark gets her way, British Columbia is headed in the opposite direction.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia studied the greenhouse gas emissions from households in 17 cities across Canada. The study examined data about consumption of gas, electricity and natural gas and other social and environmental factors that affect energy use, such as weather, population density and family size.
The study showed that households in Montreal generated the least amount of greenhouse gases per year, primarily due to the dominance of hydroelectric power. Vancouver ranked second. Victoria was studied but could not be ranked because of missing data on the use of natural gas, but was assumed to be slightly better than Vancouver.
Based on current provincial policies, our time at the top won’t last long.
The Clark government’s energy policy (designed in 2003 by former premier Gordon Campbell) has bankrupted B.C. Hydro, which has forced our electric rates to soar by double-digit increases. High electric rates encourage people to burn more natural gas. We should be doing the opposite.
Meanwhile, Clark promotes expansion of the liquid natural gas (LNG) industry to export to countries that don’t need any more gas, and a $10 billion Site C dam project to produce more hydroelectric energy that British Columbians don’t need.
It should be obvious by now that the Site C dam will power the fracked natural gas and LNG industry that wants to sell power to foreign markets. The B.C. Liberals are selling this sham even though the global economic drivers — China, U.S. Germany — are furiously abandoning fossil fuels for clean technologies.
The Site C dam amounts to an obscene taxpayer subsidy for the fossil fuel industry.
And it doesn’t get much better in Ottawa. Despite his campaign promises and his grandstand at the world Paris climate conference, Prime Justin Trudeau seems to have lost his courage to lead Canada away from fossil fuels.
Last week, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans approved permits for the Site C dam. Before that, the Environment and Climate Change ministry ignored widespread opposition — from the City of West Vancouver, among others — and approved the Woodfibre LNG project in Squamish.
So much for the concept behind Trudeau statement that “governments grant permits, communities grant permission.”
And where is the influence of Canada’s first aboriginal Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould? The Site C dam would destroy traditional hunting and fishing grounds of the Treaty 8 First Nations along with fertile farmland and adversely affect wildlife and wetlands. Wilson-Raybould has said the Site C dam would violate treaty rights.
The Clark government’s support of the fossil fuel industry are clear. The Trudeau federal government’s position is just confusing.
So, before Victorians, Vancouverites, west coasters and other Canadians break out the champagne to celebrate how green we are, we should open our eyes to where our ‘liberal’ leaders are taking us.
by George Le Masurier | Jun 8, 2016
Thanks to a Canadian initiative at the 1992 Earth Summit, the world celebrates Oceans Day on June 8. Unfortunately, our oceans haven’t done so well lately, putting a little damper on the party.
We’ve overfished and under protected them, polluted them and ignored the undeniable impacts of climate change. We’ve treated beaches as opportunities for high-rise housing developments, carelessly disregarding the ensuing stress on shorelines and marine life.
Oceans are warming and acidifying, causing disruption to marine life and habitats. Corral reefs are bleaching. Sea birds are dying off. The polar ice caps are melting.
The B.C. Liberal government shamelessly promotes the oil and gas industry, urging more oil tankers into the Salish Sea where the inevitable accident will cause catastrophic damage.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch continues to grow. It already stretches from the North America West Coast to Japan, in two giant swirls called the Western Garbage Patch and the Eastern Garbage Patch, and known as the Pacific trash vortex.
Currents in the Pacific Ocean round up more garbage every day. Most of it is non-biodegradable plastic that has broken down into tiny pieces.
Facial scrubs intended to exfoliate dead skin, and toothpaste intended to whiten teeth, and other personal care products, contain plastic microbeads. They’re little bits of plastic so small that the filters in most wastewater treatment plants don’t catch them.
Just one tube of facial scrub may contain up to 300,000 microbeads.
When they reach streams, lakes and oceans, these beads absorb other pollutants, and are consumed by fish and shellfish. Like plastic bags, they persist in the water and in sediment for more years than we can imagine.
When marine life consumes these microbeads it affects the food chain all the way up to you and me.
But even if we all stopped using products that contain plastic microbeads today – and even if we never used another plastic grocery bag – our rivers, lakes and oceans will suffer from these persistent pollutants for a millennium or more.
And speaking of wastewater treatment plants … While Victoria area elected officials argue, the region continues to flush untreated sewage into the Juan De Fuca Strait. The citizens of Comox and Courtenay pump their poop — only slightly better treated with decades-old technology — into the Strait of Georgia.
But the existing CVRD treatment plant does not screen out pharmaceuticals, or remove nitrogen and other toxic chemicals to any significant degree.
Are you thoroughly depressed yet? Calm down, because there is a little bit of good news.
Fewer people now deny the reality of climate change, save Drumpf supporters in the U.S. and too many Liberal Party supporters in B.C. A new generation of people, including engineers and scientists, who have grown up with the impacts of accelerated global warming, will affect positive change.
They are glimmers of movement toward shoreline protections and restoration along the B.C. coast. Groups like Project Watershed in the Comox Valley, for example, take unilateral action and press governments for sensible solutions.
But when, we wonder, will humans acquire the wisdom to figure out the long-term consequences of our consumption of everything from fossil fuels to toothpaste before — instead of after — they cause such damage?
Something to ponder on Oceans Day.
