Creature: Maximizing Photosynthesis

Highly efficient photosynthesizers like cyanobacteria, seagrasses, and algae that sequester carbon and produce oxygen.

Featured Creature: Leaf Sheep

Source: Wikipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

What animal eats sunlight, lives like a plant, and looks like a tiny animated sheep grazing underwater?

The Leaf Sheep!

Source: Wikipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Its not a plant. Not algae. Not a trick of the light. Meet the sea slug known as the leaf sheep, one of the most extraordinary recyclers in the ocean.

Costasiella kuroshimae is a creature so small you could fit several on your fingernail, yet so biologically inventive that scientists are still trying to understand how it pulls off its most remarkable trick: stealing solar power.

At first glance, the leaf sheep doesn’t look real. Its soft, rounded body is dotted with dozens of tiny green lobes, each tipped in white, giving it the unmistakable appearance of a miniature sheep grazing on an underwater meadow. Two dark eyes peek from its head, while a pair of ear-like rhinophores tilt forward, as if listening for something just beyond human hearing. It’s easy to understand why divers often describe the first encounter as surreal — like spotting a tiny animated character wandering across a blade of algae.

Source: Wikipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

As cute as this sea slug is, what lies beyond its appearance is one of the strangest biological strategies in the ocean: kleptoplasty — literally, “stolen plastids.”

The leaf sheep feeds on algae. That alone isn’t unusual. Many marine animals graze on algae the way herbivores graze on grass. But instead of digesting everything it eats, the leaf sheep does something astonishing. It isolates the algae’s chloroplasts — the structures that perform photosynthesis — and stores them inside its own body. Those tiny green lobes covering its back, called cerata, act like living solar panels packed with borrowed chloroplasts.

The result? The leaf sheep can photosynthesize. After eating algae, it continues producing energy from sunlight, much like a plant. It still needs to eat, but sunlight supplements its energy intake — a hybrid lifestyle that blurs the line between animal and plant.

This strategy changes how we think about energy flow in ecosystems. Animals typically rely on eating other organisms for energy, while plants convert sunlight into usable fuel. The leaf sheep does both. It occupies a strange middle ground, showing that the boundaries between ecological roles aren’t always as rigid as we assume. In a world defined by specialization, the leaf sheep quietly experiments with flexibility.

This flexibility matters. In nutrient-poor environments, being able to stretch energy resources can make the difference between survival and disappearance. By holding onto chloroplasts, the leaf sheep continues generating energy even when food is scarce. It becomes less dependent on constant grazing and more resilient to fluctuations in its environment.

Resilience through Relationships

The leaf sheep’s resilience reflects a broader theme in nature: cooperation and reuse. The leaf sheep doesn’t evolve photosynthesis from scratch. Instead, it borrows an existing solution. It recycles living machinery. It becomes, in a sense, a living fusion of species.

The undersea cutie isn’t just a curiosity — it’s a living example of interconnectedness. The algae provide chloroplasts. Sunlight fuels them. The slug uses them. Energy flows across species boundaries, dissolving the idea that organisms exist in isolation.

This is exactly the kind of hidden relationship that shapes ecosystems. The leaf sheep grazes on specific algae species, helping regulate their growth. In turn, those algae form part of the foundation for small coastal ecosystems, providing habitat for microorganisms and stabilizing surfaces where other species settle. Even a creature only a few millimeters long participates in the balance of its environment.

A Scientific Mystery

Despite its ecological significance, the leaf sheep remains largely unknown outside marine biology circles. Part of that is because of where it lives — shallow tropical waters in places like Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Part of it is its size. You don’t casually notice something smaller than a grain of rice unless you’re already looking closely.

Source: Wikipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/


There’s something else at play too. The leaf sheep challenges our expectations. We tend to imagine innovation as something dramatic: large predators, massive migrations, ecosystem engineers like beavers or corals. The leaf sheep reminds us that evolutionary creativity often happens quietly, at microscopic scales, in overlooked corners of the world.

It also raises scientific questions that researchers are still trying to answer. How long do the stolen chloroplasts remain functional? How does the leaf sheep prevent its immune system from destroying them? Do the chloroplasts continue repairing themselves, or are they slowly replaced through feeding? These mysteries are still being explored, and each answer reshapes how we understand cooperation between species.

There’s also a deeper question embedded in the leaf sheep’s existence: how many other organisms are quietly blurring biological boundaries? If one animal can borrow photosynthesis, what other hidden partnerships exist in nature that we haven’t yet recognized?

The leaf sheep also changes how we think about scale. We often focus conservation on charismatic megafauna — whales, elephants, wolves. But ecosystems are built from countless small interactions. Remove enough tiny grazers, recyclers, and specialists, and the larger structures begin to wobble. The leaf sheep represents that hidden scaffolding: small, quiet, but part of the fabric that holds ecosystems together.

From a biomimicry perspective, the leaf sheep offers a provocative idea — borrowing and integrating existing systems rather than building new ones from scratch. Human technologies often aim to optimize efficiency, reduce energy use, and create hybrid systems. The leaf sheep does all three, using biological materials, sunlight, and cooperation. It’s a tiny reminder that innovation in nature often emerges through reuse, not reinvention.

All of this is what makes the leaf sheep so compelling. It doesn’t dominate its environment. It doesn’t engineer landscapes. It doesn’t migrate across oceans. Instead, it demonstrates a subtler power — adaptability, cooperation, and efficiency at the smallest scale.

In a changing climate, those traits matter more than ever. Flexibility, energy efficiency, and symbiosis are strategies ecosystems rely on to remain resilient. The leaf sheep embodies all three.

So the next time you picture a solar-powered organism, you might imagine leaves stretching toward the sky. But somewhere in shallow tropical waters, a tiny green “sheep” grazes quietly, soaking up sunlight, and rewriting the rules of what an animal can be. 

Bio4Climate intern Allison Eckard came across the Leaf Sheep as part of her studies and was inspired by its incredibly small size and cartoon-like appearance to learn more about how it contributes to its undersea environment. 

Allison Eckard is a senior Biology major with minors in Health and Environmental Science at Lesley University with a passion for ecological literacy and science communication. Through her internship with Bio4Climate, she explores the hidden relationships between neural systems, biodiversity, and climate resilience. She especially enjoys helping readers discover the surprising ways evolution shapes life in the smallest—and most unexpected—places.

References

  • Rumpho, M. E., Worful, J. M., Lee, J., Kannan, K., Tyler, M. S., Bhattacharya, D., Moustafa, A., & Manhart, J. R. (2008). Horizontal gene transfer of the algal nuclear gene psbO to the photosynthetic sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(46), 17867–17871. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0804968105
  • Christa, G., Woehle, C., Wägele, H., & Gould, S. B. (2015). The plastid in the mollusc Elysia chlorotica: stolen photosynthesis. Journal of Experimental Botany, 66(15), 4255–4266. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erv138
  • Rumpho, M. E., Pelletreau, K. N., Moustafa, A., & Bhattacharya, D. (2011). The making of a photosynthetic animal. Journal of Experimental Biology, 214(2), 303–311. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.046540
  • Maeda, T., Hirose, E., Chikaraishi, Y., Kawato, M., Takishita, K., Yoshida, T., Verbruggen, H., & Maruyama, T. (2012). Algivore or phototroph? Plastid retention and carbon/nitrogen acquisition in the photosynthetic sea slug Costasiella kuroshimae. Biology Letters, 8(4), 543–546. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0028
  • Clark, K. B., Jensen, K. R., & Stirts, H. M. (1990). Survey for functional kleptoplasty among West Atlantic Ascoglossa (=Sacoglossa) (Mollusca, Opisthobranchia). Veliger, 33(4), 339–345.
  • Jensen, K. R. (1997). Evolution of the Sacoglossa (Mollusca, Opisthobranchia) and the ecological associations with their food plants. Evolutionary Ecology, 11(3), 301–335. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018428420456
  • WoRMS Editorial Board. (2024). Costasiella kuroshimae Ichikawa, 1993. World Register of Marine Species. https://www.marinespecies.org

Featured Creature: Night-flying Moth

What animal evolved ears on its ribcage, can detect sounds far beyond the range of human hearing, and performs dazzling aerial evasive maneuvers in total darkness—all to avoid being eaten mid-flight? 

The Night-flying Moth! 

Night-flying Moth
Source: Wiki Commons

This week’s Featured Creature is written by Allison Eckard. Allison is a student at Lesley University studying Animal Behavior. She is interning with Bio4Climate this spring.  

The Moth That Learned to Hear Death 

The first time I learned that some moths have ears on the sides of their thorax, I assumed it was a delightful biological oddity. They certainly didn’t evolve ears to hear music! Instead, they evolved them to hear bats. 

In one of my animal behavior classes, I remember seeing the neural pathway drawn on the board: sensory receptor → interneuron → motor neuron → muscle. Clean. Elegant. Survival encoded in milliseconds. That was the moment it clicked for me. Biodiversity isn’t just about species existing. It’s about systems in motion. It’s about evolutionary arms races unfolding in the dark. And the night sky is full of them. 

Life in the Ultrasonic Battlefield 

Bats hunt using echolocation. They emit high-frequency ultrasonic pulses, typically between 20 and 100 kHz, and listen for the returning echoes to detect and track prey. To human ears, this world is completely silent. To a moth, it is full of alarms. 

Many nocturnal moth species have evolved tympanal organs—simple “ears” located on the thorax—that are exquisitely tuned to ultrasonic frequencies. For moths, a split-second neural decision can mean the difference between life and death. Some species can detect bat calls specifically in the 20 to 50 kHz range. Inside those ears are two primary receptor neurons, typically called the A1 and A2 cells, and their division of labor is a marvel of minimalist engineering. 

A1 receptors are highly sensitive and respond to distant bat calls—the first whisper of danger from across the night sky. When A1 fires, the moth subtly alters its flight path, steering away from the threat before it even registers as a genuine emergency. 

A2 receptors only fire when a bat is very close—when the sound intensity spikes into the danger zone. When A2 fires, the moth throws all caution aside and performs drastic evasive maneuvers: dives, loops, and sudden power-off drops toward the ground.  

This is stimulus filtering at its finest. Ignore irrelevant background noise; respond only to biologically meaningful signals. Evolution has shaped moth nervous systems to prioritize exactly the frequencies associated with their primary predators. In a very real sense, the moth’s brain has been sculpted by bats. 

An Arms Race in the Dark 

The relationship between bats and moths is a textbook example of coevolution—an ongoing, reciprocal evolutionary arms race. Bats evolve more precise echolocation; moths evolve better detection and faster evasive flight. Some bats shift to quieter or higher frequencies to “fly under the radar” of moth hearing; some moths respond by widening their auditory range. The battlefield reshapes both combatants, generation by generation. 

bat chasing moth
Source: Conservation International

Some moth lineages have taken defense a step further. Certain tiger moths (family Erebidae) produce rapid ultrasonic clicks that may actually jam bat sonar or advertise to the bat that the moth is chemically unpalatable—a kind of acoustic warning label. The night sky, far from being the quiet backdrop we perceive, is an adaptive battlefield alive with ultrasonic signals, countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures. 

More than Just Predator and Prey: Moths as Ecological Connectors 

It would be easy to focus on the drama of the bat-moth chase and miss a larger story. Moths are not merely prey. They are pollinators, nutrient cyclers, and food web anchors that connect plant and animal communities across entire ecosystems (Macgregor et al., 2015). Many night-blooming plants depend almost entirely on moths for pollination—relationships that have co-evolved over millions of years, as intricate as any bat-moth interaction. 

Yet nocturnal insect populations are declining globally. Long-term studies have documented dramatic losses in flying insect biomass across multiple regions, driven by habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Among the most overlooked and underappreciated threats is artificial light at night (ALAN).  

moths around light bulb
Source: WikiCommons

Light pollution disrupts moth navigation, mating behavior, and the very predator-detection systems we have been admiring—drawing moths toward lights where they are exposed, exhausted, and vulnerable (Owens et al., 2020). 

The consequences cascade. Fewer moths mean less food for bats, whose own populations are already stressed by disease and habitat loss. It means fewer pollinators for night-blooming wildflowers. It means weakened food webs from the ground up. The bat-moth arms race, so finely tuned over millions of years, cannot simply be paused and resumed. Once the players are gone, the relationship dissolves. 

What Moths Teach us about Engineering and Intelligence 

From a biomimicry perspective, the moth auditory system offers a humbling lesson. With only two primary receptor cells, a moth executes rapid, context-sensitive, life-saving decisions in real time—distinguishing a distant threat from an immediate one and responding proportionately to each. In an era where we design elaborate sensor networks and AI systems to perform exactly this kind of layered threat detection, there is something worth pausing over: evolution already solved this problem, elegantly and cheaply, hundreds of millions of years ago. 

Open questions remain. How flexible are moth neural responses under rapid environmental change? Can populations adapt quickly enough to shifting bat echolocation frequencies, increasing anthropogenic noise, or the novel sensory landscape created by artificial light? These are not merely academic curiosities—they are questions about whether a coevolutionary relationship refined over geological time can survive the pace of human-caused change. 

What We Can Do 

Protecting biodiversity means protecting relationships, not just species. The bat-moth arms race is one conversation in a vast, interconnected web of such dialogues. When we protect the conditions that allow it to continue—intact habitats, dark skies, pesticide-free landscapes, and the native plant communities that support insect diversity—we protect the whole fabric. 

Practical steps include: 

  • Reducing or eliminating pesticide use, which directly depletes moth populations and the prey base for bats 
  • Supporting dark-sky initiatives and switching to wildlife-friendly outdoor lighting to limit the disorienting effects of ALAN 
  • Protecting and restoring bat habitats, including old trees, caves, and undisturbed buildings that serve as roosts 
  • Planting native species, especially night-blooming flowers that support moth populations and the broader pollination networks they anchor 

When a moth detects the ultrasonic pulse of an approaching bat and drops into a power dive—a maneuver honed across millions of years of reciprocal evolution—we are witnessing one of the most ancient and intricate dialogues in the natural world. That dialogue is part of the climate story. And it is worth listening to. 

Allison Eckard is a senior Biology major with minors in Health and Environmental Science at Lesley University with a passion for ecological literacy and science communication. Through her internship with Bio4Climate, she explores the hidden relationships between neural systems, biodiversity, and climate resilience. She especially enjoys helping readers discover the surprising ways evolution shapes life in the smallest—and most unexpected—places.

References 

Corcoran, A. J., Barber, J. R., & Conner, W. E. (2009). Tiger moth jams bat sonar. Science, 325(5938), 325–327. 

Fullard, J. H. (1998). The sensory coevolution of moths and bats. In R. R. Hoy, A. N. Popper, & R. R. Fay (Eds.), Comparative Hearing: Insects (pp. 279–326). Springer. 

Hallmann, C. A., Sorg, M., Jongejans, E., et al. (2017). More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLOS ONE, 12(10), e0185809. 

Macgregor, C. J., Pocock, M. J. O., Fox, R., & Evans, D. M. (2015). Pollination by nocturnal Lepidoptera, and the effects of light pollution: a review. Ecological Entomology, 40(3), 187–198. 

Owens, A. C. S., Cochard, P., Durrant, J., Farnworth, B., Perkin, E. K., & Sondergaard, B. (2020). Light pollution is a driver of insect declines. Biological Conservation, 241, 108259. 

Roeder, K. D. (1962). The behaviour of free flying moths in the presence of artificial ultrasonic pulses. Animal Behaviour, 10(3–4), 300–304. 

Schnitzler, H.-U., & Kalko, E. K. V. (2001). Echolocation by insect-eating bats. BioScience, 51(7), 557–569. 

Ter Hofstede, H. M., & Ratcliffe, J. M. (2016). Evolutionary escalation: the bat–moth arms race. Journal of Experimental Biology, 219(11), 1589–1602. 

Featured Creature: Mouse-ear cress

What plant was the first to flower in space and is the most widely used model species for studying plant biology?

Arabidopsis thaliana (Mouse-ear cress)!

Mouse-ear Cress, Arabidopsis thaliana (Image Credit: Brendan Cole via iNaturalist)

If you’re a regular reader of Bio4Climate’s Featured Creature series, you might be wondering why I wrote the scientific name of this organism first, rather than its common name. Arabidopsis thaliana (also known as mouse-ear cress, thale cress, or rock cress) is, in fact, recognized by its scientific name more often because it’s one of the most popular organisms used in plant studies and has become the model system of choice for researchers exploring plant biology and comparative genomics. In fact, it’s often dubbed the “white mouse” of the plant research community, making its common name something of a double entendre.

bodhiheera via INaturalist (CC BY NC)
The basal rosette (circular or spiral leaf pattern at base)

A. thaliana is a small plant with a basal rosette of leaves (a circular or spiral pattern near the base of a plant) that grows up to 9.5 inches (25 cm) in height, and small white flowers that give the plant its name. Mouse-ear is a member of the Brassicaceae (Brass-si-case-see), or mustard, family, which includes plants like —you guessed it— mustard, along with cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and radish. While A. thaliana is indeed edible like these more economically important crop plants, its capacity as a spring vegetable is not the reason for its fame. More on that story in a minute.

Native to Eurasia and Africa and naturalized worldwide due to human disturbance, A. thaliana is often found by roadsides and other disrupted (or man-made) environments. You have most likely walked by this cruciferous plant without even realizing it. To many, it’s just another weed (though it’s not actually a weed). A. thaliana is widely distributed in habitats with bare, nutrient-poor soil and rocky areas where other plants struggle to establish, needing only air, water, sunlight, and a few minerals to complete its short six-week life cycle. As a self-pollinating plant (selfer), it can also produce seeds without external pollinators. These characteristics help A. thaliana colonize those barren or disturbed areas, making it a pioneer plant—those hardy plants that pave the way and help initiate the development of a plant community.

Sergey Mayorov via iNaturalist
Misha Zitser via iNaturalist

What makes Arabidopsis thaliana so important in plant research?

Arabidopsis thaliana’s popularity as a leading research organism really exploded when its genome was fully sequenced in 2000. With relatively fewer base pairs of DNA and around 25,000 genes (other plants can have upwards of 30,000-45,000), the plant’s genetic simplicity —paired with its short life cycle— allows researchers to conduct experiments and analyze how specific genes influence development, physiology, and reproduction. Due to the volume of work being focused on the plant since its genome sequencing, A. thaliana is genetically well-characterized, and it’s become an important model system for identifying genes and their functions.

An invaluable effort supporting this research is The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR). The online database offers open access to gene sequences, molecular data, and research findings, fostering collaboration and accelerating discovery. The Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre (NASC) complements TAIR by maintaining the world’s largest seed collection for A. thaliana. With more that one million seed stocks and distribution networks spanning 30 countries, NASC ensures that scientists have ready access to the genetic material they need to push plant science forward.

Arabidopsis thaliana cultures in agar medium (Image Credit: Laboratoire Physiologie Cellulaire & Végétale: LPCV, or Cellular & Plant Physiology Laboratory)

The plant’s limited space requirements and ability to produce high quantities of seeds and specimens assists in repeated and efficient genetic experiments.

Adept at Adapting

When you think of plants and flowers, words like “fragile” or “delicate” often come to mind. While this may be true, nature is much stronger and more resilient than people first assume. A. thaliana is a prime example of how a small, seemingly weak-looking plant can, in fact, adapt well and keep itself alive. As a plant living in the natural world, A. thaliana has a range of defense mechanisms available to protect against herbivorous insects. Many unique samples of A. thaliana have leaves covered in trichomes, which are bristle-like outgrowths on the outer layer of the plant, that ward off moths and flea beetles. When A. thaliana’s plant tissue is damaged, special compounds call glucosinolates interact with an enzyme, producing toxins that deter most would-be attackers. Studying these Arabidopsis-insect interactions can provide crucial information on mechanisms behind traits that may be important for other plant species.

Using A. thaliana as a research tool has applications for larger, more complex crops. It has furthered our understanding of germination, aspects of plant growth, and been a key to identifying a wide range of plant-specific gene functions.

While A. thaliana has helped form the foundation of modern plant biology, its research informs areas outside strictly plant science as well, including air and soil quality from a public health perspective. A. thaliana can be used as an environmental monitor by tracking its exposure and reaction to different pollutants. This small plant also plays a part in biofuel production and space biology.

Arabidopsis thaliana grown in lunar soil
Image Credit: Tyler Jones via NASA

Did you say space biology?

Yes, I did! Arabidopsis thaliana was the first plant to flower in space in 1982 aboard the Soviet Salyut 7. Due to its research value, to this day is it one of the most commonly grown plants in space. While it’s not a viable source of food, discoveries made using A. thaliana provide insights that can be applied to a variety of other plants. In the inhospitable environment of space, researchers deploy advanced plant habitats (APHs) with automated water recovery, distribution, atmosphere content, moisture levels, and temperature to assess how A. thaliana’s gene expression and plant health changes in space. When the plants are mature, the crew will freeze or chemically fix samples to preserve them on their journey back down to Earth for further study. Experiments to understand how space affects A. thaliana’s growth and development are key to learning how to keep plants flourishing in space and, some day, help promote long-duration missions for astronauts.

Nature’s little secrets

Nature can be found in the most improbable of places. Yesterday, A. thaliana was just a weed, one of the countless others blooming in places we’ve made natural life nearly impossible. Along a busy road or in the cracks of an aging sidewalk. I’ve stepped over it and driven by it every day without thinking twice.

Today, it’s a rugged little plant growing in some of the most unlikely or inhospitable places, not the least of which is about 250 nautical miles above our heads. A. thaliana’s relatively simple and unremarkable nature is precisely what makes it valuable to science, acting as a sort of legend to help researchers study other plants. It makes me wonder what other of nature’s secrets I pass every day, hidden in plain sight.

Remembering to appreciate those little plants growing on the sidewalk,

Abigail

Abigail Gipson is an environmental advocate with a bachelor’s degree in humanitarian studies from Fordham University. Working to protect the natural world and its inhabitants, Abigail is specifically interested in environmental protection, ecosystem-based adaptation, and the intersection of climate change with human rights and animal welfare. She loves autumn, reading, and gardening.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Giant Kelp

Group of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) swimming in kelp forest (Macrocystis pyrifera), California, USA. Pacific ocean. Inside the Tide" by Royal Botanic Garden Sydney is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Which creature creates forests underwater, provides food and shelter for countless species, and helps stabilize the climate?

Giant Kelp!

Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Under the sea

To witness the beauty of kelp, and watch how it contributes to the survival of numerous marine and terrestrial creatures, you have to go underwater. Although kelp looks like a plant, it is actually a type of algae and is part of the kingdom Protista. Most creatures in this kingdom are single-celled organisms, but Giant Kelp has complex cells and is the largest protist.

Giant Kelp reside in cold, clear, nutrient-rich waters. Unlike plants, they lack roots, so they attach themselves to hard, rocky seafloors. Along their ‘branches,’ they have sacs filled with gas that allow them to grow upright, and they can reach heights of more than 100 feet (30 meters). They truly are giant! Once they grow tall enough to reach the sea’s surface, they begin to grow sideways – extending their reach. 

Another side effect of not having roots is the inability to get nutrients from underground. Luckily for kelp, they get all the nutrients they need from the sea water surrounding them. They do, however, act like plants when it comes to photosynthesis. Giant Kelp utilize the sun’s energy rather than feeding on other creatures (I suppose even protists can decide when they want to be plant-like).

School of anchovies and various rockfish and other kelp forest species
in an exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium, taken in 2016
Rhinopias, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The rainforests of the ocean

Giant Kelp will grow in bunches where conditions are right, such as the west coast of North- America, forming underwater forests. These forests provide food and shelter for thousands of animals including sharks and bony fishes, invertebrates such as lobsters and squids, marine mammals such as seals and sea otters, and birds such as cormorants and snowy egrets. In turn, all of these animals help maintain balance in this ecosystem, as exemplified by sea otters who eat sea urchins – a notorious kelp eater. The sheer amount of biodiversity held within kelp forests has earned the algae its nickname, “rainforest of the ocean.”

Kelps feed creatures far away from their underwater forests as well. When pieces of the algae detach and end up on beaches, coastal-living animals take advantage of its many nutrients. Decomposing kelp finds its way to the bottom of the deep sea where creatures surrounded by darkness welcome the newfound treasure.

Animals also love Giant Kelp’s thick blades that provide a barrier between them and predators. This barrier comes in handy when storms occur, too, as they decrease the intensity of incoming waves and currents. In other words, without kelps, millions of individuals would suffer – including us humans. 

Group of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) swimming in
kelp forest (Macrocystis pyrifera), California, USA. Pacific ocean.
Inside the Tide” by Royal Botanic Garden Sydney CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Delicious algae

Many people have taken to kelp farming to restore coastal waters, and to harvest the many benefits Giant Kelp has to offer. We can eat kelp outright, or use it to create materials that go into a variety of products – from soaps and glass to toothpaste and ice cream (yum!).

In food products you normally wouldn’t find kelp, the algae is intentionally added for its many vitamins and minerals including iron, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, amino acids. Kelp can even be taken as a vitamin supplement, or added to other vitamins for an extra boost. Although you may not be used to kelp-based soups and other dishes, you may want to learn some new recipes to get all these amazing benefits!

Sea kelp salad by dan mogford licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Our fellow ecorestorer

There’s a second reason Giant Kelp forests are considered ‘rainforests of the ocean’ – they help sequester carbon. Since kelp can photosynthesize, they are one of the many species converting carbon into oxygen. Often this job is assigned to the plant kingdom, but as we know, kelp like to partake in some aspects of the plant party. The formation of oxygen also helps keep the ocean’s pH in balance, and it’s one of the reasons why these underwater forests are a shelter for many. 

As the planet and oceans warm, sequestering carbon is becoming more urgent and more difficult as emissions continue to rise. Thank you, Giant Kelp, for being an ecosystem-making, nutrient-bearing, carbon sequestering all around rockstar! 

To support the important work of kelps, we can adopt sustainable fishing practices that prioritize the health of coastal marine communities. See how one group in the United Kingdom is already taking this on:

For the oceans.

By Tania Roa