“It's a breeding ground,” he said. “Local squid love to lay their eggs on kelp. It's also a source of kelp rafts that can transport some species around the sub-Antarctic oceans.” ...

Across the Southern Hemisphere, patches of seaweed are getting sick. Scientists have found strange yellow growths called galls on kelp in Latin America, southern Africa, and Australasia. The disease ...

Though structurally quite different, the kelp blades act like the leaves of land plants, photosynthetically converting the sun’s energy and carbon dioxide from seawater into food. This is then ...

Scientists have long known that rafts of bull kelp sometimes wash ashore in Antarctica, Dawson says, but the only way to trace the origin of each clump is genetic testing. “To get the big picture, ...

The leaf-like fronds contain air-filled bladders that help the kelp stalks float upright in the water, giving kelp beds the drifting appearance of an underwater forest. Kelp can be found all around ...

Despite their low numbers, sea otters consume voracious kelp-eating sea urchins at a high enough rate that kelp forests continue to persist and provide habitat for numerous species. Without sea ...