Episode 33: Pacific Kelp Forests
“Giant kelp forests can be considered the submerged counterparts of rainforests. They are among the most species rich communities in temperate seas and among the most productive ecosystems on earth.”
A conversation with Dr. Arturo Ramírez-Valdez (UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography & Universidad Autonoma de Baja California) about the iconic Pacific kelp forests, international management efforts, marine protected areas, giant sea bass, and coastal ecosystems. Released March 18, 2022.
guests on the show
Dr. Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Dr. Arturo Ramírez-Valdez currently serves as a Staff Researcher working on questions related to marine conservation and resource management at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, where he earned his Ph.D and lecturer at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. After finishing a B.Sc. in Marine Ecology and an M.Sc. in Oceanography, Dr. Ramírez-Valdez taught for four years at the University of Baja California in Ensenada, Mexico. Dr. Ramírez-Valdez earned the Mexican Oceanography Award and the Ichthyology National Award for his Master thesis research on biogeographic regionalization of the Baja California peninsula. His current research focuses on the effects of political borders on our understanding of marine resources, management, and conservation efforts. Dr. Ramírez-Valdez is the founder and lead scientist for the Giant Sea Bass / Mero Gigante Project, a team of early-career scientists and fishers conducting science-based marine conservation initiatives to improve fisheries management. Follow Dr. Ramírez-Valdez @arturorava
Transcript
Sam Sandoval
Bienvenidos a Water Talk, in today's episode, we will talk about the largest water body in California, and in fact, all over the world, that is many times overseen or underrated: the ocean. Our guest is Dr. Arturo Ramírez-Valdez, who is a marine conservation biologist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and lecturer at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, in Ensenada. Arturo has done extensive research along the coast of California, the kelp forest ecosystem, and giant seaweed and some of these resources are shared throughout the coast from Alaska to Baja California.
We're really looking forward to talking with Arturo. I've enjoyed talking about our love for the ocean, the importance of protecting it, and I really want to share some of my conversations with Arturo with the rest of the audience. I would like to humanize the ocean to our audience and to provide a clearer picture of what it looks like, what services it provides, and why we should care about coastal California. And second, in the last two years, I've developed a love for the ocean, mostly because it’s a place that I've been going for peace and to get some enjoyment.
Faith, what about you? Why do you think it's important to talk about the ocean?
Faith Kearns
Well, I'm really excited to talk with Arturo today because in California, and I think just generally, we tend to talk about freshwater systems and ocean systems as totally separate things. And I think that is particularly true in the sciences, where just because of the segmentation of research, it's much easier to deal with these sorts of saltwater systems on their own, and then deal with freshwater, although there are also estuaries that confuse the picture, right, like the San Francisco Bay. I think that's a somewhat arbitrary designation, that these are separate systems.
And so I'm really excited to talk to someone about the coast, which as you mentioned, in California is just such an important part of our way of life, for maintaining our mental health and as an important source of food, it's habitat for all sorts of animals. So yeah, I'm just super excited to bring the ocean dimension into Water Talk.
Sam Sandoval
And I will say that I also confess: I’m part of that bias. Typically, when we teach about hydrology, our basing, we put it at the outlet, we never think about what is the impact of the hydrology, even within the ocean. So I feel also responsible for not doing that, I will, I'll try to correct myself. The one other thing you're mentioning is bringing the human dimension into the ocean, from what we're seeing from the coast also, and how it looks inside and I'm very excited about it. There is a place called coastal California, which is all the counties that are along the coast of California. We will be talking about their importance.
For context, about 70% of people living in California, live in a county along the coast. So it is very important. All of us, one way or another, are related with the ocean. And we have seen a lot of events that have put in danger, the resources that we have in the coast like oil spills and, some decades ago, we even used to do harvesting of kelp. So there has been a history of overuse and not to see the ocean as other resources that we have or that we can use, but more of humanizing, seeing the ocean as part of our understanding.
So without further ado, let's start with Arturo. Arturo, welcome to our talk.
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here with you guys.
Sam Sandoval
We have discussed for a long time, the importance of the ocean and our love for it. I would like to start this conversation by asking about you, your career and your interest in the ocean.
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Yeah, so I grew up in the landlocked Mexican state of Guanajuato. Guanajuato is three hours drive north of Mexico City, but even when I grew up, far from the ocean, every summer my parents took us to the beach, and that's how I developed that intimate relationship with the ocean. My passion for the ocean and its creatures was instantaneous actually. So I had these happy memories of my mother dragging me off from the beach because it was time to go to sleep and me begging for more time in the ocean. So at the age of 10, I began telling people that I wanted to be a marine biologist despite not knowing exactly what that meant. I am part of the, probably, last generation of kids that grew up watching documentaries from Jacques Cousteau and his crew of marine explorers documenting the wonders of marine life. I really wanted to be part of these marine explorations. So that is how I became the first marine biologist, and the first scientist, in my extended family.
After finishing my bachelor's in science in marine ecology, and my master degree in oceanography in Ensenada, Mexico, I then taught for four years at the University of Baja California in Ensenada, Mexico. Then I earned my PhD in marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, with research focused on the effects of political borders on our understanding of marine resources management and conservation efforts. I have been doing research on the ecology and ecosystem services of the kelp forest ecosystem for many years. And now I'm connecting my research with this need to approach this ecosystem from a borderless perspective. Now I am a researcher and adjunct professor in the University of Baja California, Mexico.
Sam Sandoval
Thank you Arturo. So today, we're bringing our audience for the first time into the ocean and sharing the importance of it. So in this case, can you provide us an overview of the Pacific Ocean in California? What is it?
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Yes, so I feel really proud for introducing these amazing ecosystems to these podcasts or the listeners because Californians have a close relationship with the ocean. California's culture and economy completely depend on the ocean with more than 400 miles of coastline. California has the third longest coastline of any state in America, just after Alaska and Florida. So its coastline is not just one of the longest in the country, but one of the most diverse in terms of ecosystems. It goes from the desert border with Mexico to the temperate coniferous forests on the border with Oregon, for instance. In terms of human population, two out of three Californians live along the coast of California. In 2019, it was estimated that 26.9 million people live in the counties along the coast of California, which represent 68% of California's population.
In terms of economy, the California ocean economy represents roughly 12% of the gross domestic product of the US ocean economy. So that says how important it is. In terms of GDP. The California ocean economy is dominated by three main sectors, tourism and recreation, marine transportation, and offshore mineral extraction. Together these three sectors account for 95% of the ocean economy in terms of GDP. Just to give you an idea, the ocean-dependent tourism and recreation represented $17 billion in 2012. When you evaluate this economy in detail, in terms of activities, products and services, we get from the ocean all this economic production and all these recreational activities, which come as no surprise. For instance, In a recent study published by the Public Policy Institute of California, three in four Californians say that the condition of the ocean and beaches is very important to California's future economy and quality of life.
So the waters of the California coastline boasts some of the most productive and diverse marine ecosystems in the world. This is mainly enhanced by the California current, which moves southward along the western coast of North America and is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. California’s most-represented marine ecosystems includes estuaries and wetlands, lagoons, rocky reefs and sea mounts, deep sea canyons, deep sea corals and, of course, the kelp forests, one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world.
Sam Sandoval
Arturo, thank you for the overview. It’s impressive all the economic benefits, but also some of the aesthetic and recreational benefits. I mentioned in the introduction that walking along the coast of California during the pandemic, it really helped me out in terms of putting [my mind at peace], to travel and get a break from all the stress. As I was walking there, I would see some of these pieces of kelp forest throughout the coast close to Morro Bay. I would see a lot of the dolphins and seals just poking their heads out of the kelp forests. So can you describe to us what the kelp forest is? And what does it look like?
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Of course. Kelp forests can be considered the submerged counterparts of the rainforests. They are among the most species-rich communities in temperate seas and among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. Much like trees in forests on land, canopy forming kelp serves as the structural species of these submarine forests in the ocean. So kelp forests are extensive underwater habitats whose range covers 25% of the world’s coastlines, and mainly occur worldwide through the temperate and polar coastal oceans. These dense canopies of algae generally occur in temperate or cold, nutrient rich waters and because of their dependency on land, for photosynthesis, for sugar, kelp forests formed in shallow open waters and are readily found deeper than 50 to 100 feet. Kelp forests can be seen throughout much of the coast of North America among other regions of the word like Chile, Australia, and the North Atlantic. And when I say North America, I really mean all the three countries of North America, the United States, Mexico, and Canada. So just like the trees on land, and corals and mangroves in the marine environment, kelp is the foundation species of the kelp forests.
Kelp is a large brown algae that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. So despite its appearance, just like canopy-forming algae, Kelp is not a plant, but actually an algae. So kelp is among the fastest growing species on Earth. They can grow up between 18 and 25 inches a day and 90 feet in one season in their ideal conditions. So a single individual can reach more than 100 feet long and weigh about 90 pounds. So these characteristics place them among the most productive of all living organisms on Earth. So kelps main requirements to grow include cold temperature, as I mentioned before, but also nutrient rich waters and sunlight. And they also require the rocky reef habitat, because they require these rocks to attach to the floor.
California harbors a greater variety of higher diversity of seaweeds and animals than almost any other marine ecosystems. Many of these organisms, invertebrates and fish, use kelp and kelp blades and their undersides as habitat to shelter and even to provide food. This kelp provides all the resources for these marine species to have all these conditions and have this high productivity and highly diverse marine ecosystem. So the very interesting thing about this is that if you think how in a terrestrial ecosystem that connects different countries on the land like these forests, or what we call the desert that spans across Southern and Baja California, well, in that same way the kelp forests connect Baja California and California environments. They are totally the same ecosystem and basically, they are represented by mostly the same species.
What we know about the structure of the kelp forests in Southern California and Baja California are quite similar. Both are shaped by the kelp macrocystis and they share most of the same species. The difference is the California kelp forests are by far the most studied on the planet. You know, California is one of the most important economies of the world so we also have all these research institutions and universities, but very little is known about these marine ecosystems south of the border. What we know is the kelp forest in Baja California is experiencing faster changes as a result of climate change and this might be the same expected scenario for the California kelp forests in a few decades. So our ability to generate predictions is directly related to the spatial and temporal scale of the studies or the research that we have done. So if we are covering just half of these marine ecosystems, we are missing an important part of the understanding of these patterns or processes and the stressors that actually are rapidly changing these marine ecosystems.
Sam Sandoval
Thanks for the picture that you're painting of the kelp forest ecosystem. I was remembering two or three years ago, I was in San Diego, and then decided to give you a phone call and we took a quick dive into the kelp forest that is really close to La Jolla, La Jolla Shores. For me it was very interesting because as we were swimming in the kelp forest, a lot of sea lions and a lot of species were around it. Also, you were telling me that you feel very comfortable with all the kelp rubbing your body while I was stressed out. So what are the ecosystem services that the kelp forests provide to us? How can we value the kelp forests as you're painting this picture for us?
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
You just actually mentioned one of the most important [ecosystem services], the moment that you describe going to the beach during the pandemic and finding this connection with nature, which is, I would say, one of the most important [ecosystem services] because I am not an economist. An ecosystem service is any benefit that wildlife or an ecosystem provide to people. These benefits can be direct or indirect; small or large. So we have regulating services, provisioning services, cultural services, which is one of the ones that you described before, and supporting services. Because of their great productivity, biodiversity and close proximity to shore, California kelp forests have a long and diverse history of human use. And because of that kelp forests provide many of these different ecosystem services [that] provide regulated services through diversity and heritage species, for example.
It also provides provisioning services through fisheries and natural products. Many of the products that we eat that we use in our lives on a daily basis. It also provides cultural services through ecotourism and traditional activities, spiritual and cultural values, and supported services by nutrient cycling and primary production. So, for instance, kelp, just considering the algae macrocystis, is rich in iodine and alkali, which is used in soap and glass production. We also extract alginates to thicken products such as ice cream, jelly, salad dressing, and toothpaste. We really use some of these products without knowing it. And of course in a more direct way, those which are totally connected with the ocean through activities like fishing and recreation activities are accounted as ecosystem services too.
Sam Sandoval
There are many things like toothpaste or some of these cleaning products that we just use. One other thing that you mentioned early in our comments is the importance of the GDP that the ocean provides to California and may be comparable with other sectors. What are we doing to protect our kelp forest? Are we doing anything to protect it? How has it been threatened throughout our history?
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
This is a very complex question, because the way that we conserve kelp forests is connected to the challenges that we are facing not just for kelp forests, but, in general, mass climate change, ocean acidification and many others. But let me address this by saying California is leading some of these big efforts in marine conservation. For instance, [California] is probably the region with more marine protected areas in the world, not the largest, but [the most numerous], which can be even better, because then you have all these stepping stones that creates this connectivity between different places with different communities, fish and invertebrate communities.
More than 124 marine protected areas have been designated in the state waters, all the way from the northern coast, all the way to the Mexican border. Now we have 16% of the California state waters protected under this initiative. California is always evaluating the possibility to increase these marine protected areas, which, by the way, is one of the best marine conservation strategies that we have to protect the marine life from the different pressures, even if those are the climate stressors or human induced stressors. But of course, we can do even more. The conservation strategies don't need to be totally connected or applied directly in the ocean. Runoff from agriculture can also be an important source of pollution not just by adding all these chemicals and sediments [which directly] impact the habitat of these [coastal] marine ecosystems.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much, Arturo. That's really interesting. You had just briefly mentioned climate change and ocean acidification and I'm wondering if you could expand just a little bit on how climate change and ocean acidification might be affecting the kelp forest, in particular, maybe the Pacific Ocean, more generally.
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Yeah, sure, kelp forests face a variety of threats. Climate change in general exacerbates El Niño events, and also exacerbates winter storms. We are learning that it can be also related with marine heat waves, and of course, ocean acidification. On the other hand, we have all these human induced threats, like overfishing, and pollution. In general, we know that we are losing most of the kelp during El Niño events, especially intense El Niño events. And we used to think [of] kelp forests as very resilient ecosystems, but now we are learning that under different stressors, this [is] no longer true. As a result of these storms, we know that we have these annual cycles, we see the kelp forests thrive during the end of summer, beginning of fall and then as soon as the winter starts, we see all this kelp [on] the beach and not in the water. So we know that this [is] a natural process, but because we know that with climate change we expect more and more intense storms. What we are seeing is that we are missing important parts of the kelp forests as a result at the end of the storm season.
So if we add to this what we are starting to analyze to understand these marine heat waves, which [is] mostly this high temperature water in very specific places, one of the most impact[ful] marine heatwaves in the last few decades, which was called “the blob” impacted Northern California and we lost, I think, 95% of the kelp forests in Northern California. Moving to the human stressors, what we are seeing is that overfishing, being the most challenging of all of them, with all these management measures that California has been pushing, we expect this [stressor] to [have a less negative] impact. Just adding one more [stressor], for instance, is agriculture and all of the runoff and wastewater discharge.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much. It's really interesting to think about kelp forests as affected by the same kinds of things that we are looking at when it comes to drought on land in California and sort of these atmospheric events. I've never given it that much thought, So I appreciate learning that.
Sam Sandoval
One thing that you were mentioning is your dissertation and a lot of the research that you did for your PhD was related [to] managing ecosystems across the border […] I would love to hear some of the insights of the things that you did. And also, I've seen some pictures of you and you've been interviewed quite a lot by news outlets related [to] the seabass. So can you talk to us a little bit about ecosystems across borders, and the sea bass?
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
Thank you Sam. Of course! I love to talk about this, so you may need to stop me after a few minutes because, if not, it's going to take us hours! So it's very interesting. If we think about it, everyone that learns about ecology and kind of biology 101, they teach us to understand a species as totally connected with their distribution. We think about a species and the next thing that we learn is where it occurs, the distribution, and then the next thing that we do is actually try to understand how they are connected. So then we create all these large ecosystems, so totally connected, they need this region because they need all the space to reproduce, to move from one place to another, and maintain these communities.
It's really interesting, if that's totally true, why do we keep doing research and management, just inside of political boundaries, which are totally a de facto understanding of the territory?
So what we are missing, creating this way to study and to understand nature, is that we are missing an important part of the idea. You can think, well, everyone does their part, does their research, publishes, and then we connect our ideas. But this is actually not happening. We don't have the same capability, the same resources to study and to do research. So then we have all this misunderstanding that this species, or this ecosystem is limited to the border. And that's actually how my story started. I’m a fish guy. I love fish. That's how I started in science.
It was so interesting to see that many of the fish distributions [around the border area] don't mention the border, [but instead] say San Diego. And of course the common scientific knowledge tells you that there is nothing limiting the marine ecosystem in this area. So then that's how I started to understand that this may be the result of lack of studies across the border and not communicating or sharing information. So I published the first study about these fish distributions, and as a part of my research we identified so many species that were previously thought that their distribution ended in San Diego. But this is not just about knowledge, this isn’t just about missing important pieces of information, but this is [related] to how we manage these resources. So that’s how my interests about fish [evolved to include] fisheries and ecosystem services and management.
The giant sea bass was a beautiful example of this. Just briefly let me describe to you the giant sea bass. It is the largest coastal bony fish in the California waters. It grows to almost three meters long. So it's not like a normal fish, this can be really, really a big one. I have been diving close to them, [which] is an amazing feeling to be close to these big guys. So this fish has been protected in California for more than forty years. So this is a really interesting example, because there are not many examples of these kinds of [disparate cross-border] strategies [since] it has been an open fishery in Baja. And because of overfishing in the 1930s, it was thought that the fishery collapsed, and then they started fishing in Mexican waters. But then it was also thought that the population wasn’t large enough. So it was actually reported by some scientists that there were less than 500 individuals of these fish.
Can you imagine a marine fish [with] less than 500 individuals?
So that is why it was categorized as a critically endangered species. And if that was true, this would be the most endangered fish in the world. So as a result of these connecting dots, and connecting research, what we learned is that the population of the giant sea bass never collapsed, it was just a change in the management between Mexico and California. Mexico asked California not to fish anymore in Mexican waters. And [so] what we interpreted as a collapse of the fishery, it was [more like] a decline [from] a new strategy [protecting] parts of the fishery [in order] to keep using the other part of the population.
So now I am working to do a new assessment of this fish species for the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). And we think that this is not going to be a critically endangered species any longer. So this is good news some [might] be worried that this is not going to be categorized as a critically endangered species. But this is actually a really good message that sometimes what we are missing is to study the entire distribution of a species.
And after I published this paper, a lot of botanists from [the US] contacted me [to] say, “This is a really good point because I have been telling people that we need to the other side of the border and account for some species that we consider here [to be] endangered [or] critically endangered or in a very low density.”
So this is kind of the message, Sam, but in general, what they really want to also say is that it’s not just to find out that we have more of these resources, but actually to use this information to bring these conversations to the lawmakers and say, I'm sorry, but we are missing something like the basic knowledge that we have about the species is that we should be managing these [from] a borderless perspective [and to have] committees [or] special offices [to] regulate, or share information, to manage the resources in a more sustainable way together.
Faith Kearns
That was great. Thank you so much, Arturo. So we always like to end by asking our guests how we, meaning our Water Talk group here, and our listeners can support your work and your efforts. So please share anything we can do to support you, with us.
Arturo Ramírez-Valdez
So I think I'm gonna just mention, first, the most general thing that we can do all together is [to] spread awareness. The fact that we are discussing and we are talking about these issues is just a really good message. And we need to learn as much as we can, and don't hesitate to tell people about these issues. The second is to engage with ocean conservation initiatives volunteering in cleanups, and to see if you can participate in NGOs that [engage] with these kinds of initiatives. And of course, to vote. Voting can give us the power to choose leaders who can make decisions to protect our ocean, our air, water, in general, all the resources that we care [for], and we love, and to ensure communities have a voice in the decision making process.
And remember, voting is just part of the process. Engage with your lawmakers, make sure they are listening and bring these topics to the discussion. So in a more direct way reduce your footprint, you know all about this, you can even assess your personal footprint. So just try to reduce the [consumption] of your car, ride your bike, reduce the use of your heater, and dryer because all this is connected. Greenhouse gasses are affecting all these animals [because] it [all] ends [up] in the water.
So we need to remember that everything is connected and more directly [related] to the ocean… make sustainable choices when you are deciding what to eat and what we buy in terms of seafood. Of course also, if you are somebody that is interested in the fishery, fish [responsibly]. Try to practice catch and release, then we are going to have more fish in the future.
And finally, and this is probably one of my favorites: explore the ocean. Do exactly what Sam [did] during the pandemic. [Go] to the beach [and] feel that connection. It kind of builds…this idea and this concern that we need to do something about it. Just like one of my heroes used to say, Jacques Cousteau, people protect what they love. And of course, to love something we need to appreciate what it is. So that is why it's so important to go to the ocean. And even if you can visit aquariums and all these places that you can get involved in all these conservation strategies and initiatives.