Urchin barren

Sea urchins can eat large amounts of kelp.

Urchin barrens are places in the ocean where sea urchins have eaten and killed so many kelp plants that they turned a kelp forest into something like a desert. This happens when there are too many sea urchins. The fish, krill and other animals that live in the kelp either die or leave. Urchin barrens occur in coastal areas of the Pacific Ocean.^[1]^[2]

Urchin barrens had been forming for a long time, but in the second half of the 2010s, there were suddenly many more.^[3]

↑ Doug Simpson (February 2017). "Underwater Barrens: Monitoring the fate of Southern Californian kelp requires a long view". Natural History Magazine. Retrieved May 22, 2020. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
↑ "With otters away, what keeps urchins at bay?". California Sea Grant. March 14, 2019. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
↑ Cite error: The named reference GuardianPurple was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).

[NHMag-1] Doug Simpson (February 2017). "Underwater Barrens: Monitoring the fate of Southern Californian kelp requires a long view". Natural History Magazine. Retrieved May 22, 2020. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)

[Grant-2] "With otters away, what keeps urchins at bay?". California Sea Grant. March 14, 2019. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2020.

[GuardianPurple-3] Cite error: The named reference GuardianPurple was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).

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