The Impact of Sea Otters on Coastal Ecosystems

🌊 The video explores coastal food webs and focuses on the interaction between kelp, sea urchins, and sea otters.

🌿 Sea otters are considered keystone species as they protect kelp forests by controlling the sea urchin population.

🐚 Other predators like sunflower stars also play a role in the food web, and otters prefer abalone and crabs as their prey.

🔗 A food web represents the transfer of energy in an ecosystem or community through predator-prey interactions.

🌊 The marine ecosystem off the coast of California is a diverse food web with numerous interconnected species.

⚡️ Energy flows through the food web, and everything in the ecosystem depends on it.

🌊 The coastal ecosystem supports a diverse range of species and is influenced by small changes.

🌿🦦 Sea otters are a keystone species that stabilize sea urchin and kelp populations.

⚡️ The removal of sea otters would impact the flow of energy through the ecosystem.

🌊 The removal of a keystone species, like sea otters, has cascading effects on populations and disrupts the flow of energy in coastal food webs.

🌿 Understanding ecosystems and the connections between species in food webs can guide conservation efforts and sustain diverse networks of life.