Keystone Species

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A niche is a specific job an organism has in their life, for some they are important to their ecosystem they live in, they are given the title keystone species. Keystone species help regulate the ecosystem by keeping it in balance when the population of the keystone declines their prey increases, which can have an adverse reaction to the balance (Nancy, 2013). The kelp forest’s keystone is the sea otter (Enhyra lutris) which keeps the population of sea urchins, which feed off of the kelp, in balance (Konar, 2000).
There are three subspecies around the world, two in Alaska common sea otter (E. l. lutris), and Northern Sea otter (E. l. kenyomi), and the California sea otter, E. l. nereis, (Folkens et al. 2002). They prefer shallow waters, about …show more content…
The sea otter population have been shown to increase until food sources become a limiting factor (Estes and Duggins, 1995). This is an example of “top-down” trophic interaction. Sea urchins are capable of overgrazing on the kelp leaving areas that would be barren. The sea otters keep the sea urchin population down as to not allow them to overgraze the kelp forest. Sea otter population showed a decline back in the 1990’s due to the possibility of increased predation from killer whales (Orcinus orca) ( Estes et al., 1998). Sea otters are an essential part of the kelp forest ecosystem, just as the kelp forests help some species of reef fish live and thrive (Holbrook et al., 1990). The kelp forest is operated in a top-down trophic interaction. The sea urchins feast on the kelp if not kept in check by predation they can overgraze the forests and cause loss of habitation for fish and their young. With sea otters being able to predate on the sea urchins they reduce the chances of overgrazing. This is important because the kelp forms a habitat in the whole water column from the top to the bottom where the kelp is

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