The Boston Globe has a well-reported but depressing article about the effect that the warming Gulf of Maine is having on kelp forests, which are almost up there with coral reefs in terms of supporting ecosystems.
Researchers found temperatures have become too warm, especially in the spring and summer, in the southern parts of the Gulf of Maine, where kelp forests have disappeared and been replaced by red algae that have formed what looks like a thick carpet along the sea floor. The warming waters have been driven, in large part, by climate change.
Kelp — a large, brown seaweed that grows in shallow ocean waters — provides the foundation for marine life, including Maine’s lobster population, and its half-billion-dollar lobster fishery. The dense tangle of blades provides a crucial habitat to a range of organisms, offering them protection from predators, food, and places to spawn.
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