Kelp Diving
Posted By Francesca Koe on 17 September 2003
There is nothing quite like diving in the beauty and mystery of a kelp forest; it is truly an awe-inspiring experience! Home to hundreds of species, kelp can be a diver’s perfect paradise for observing a plethora of sea-life and coastal creatures. Requiring a very specialized marine environment, giant kelp is only found in certain climates, namely the coastlines of North & South America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Otherwise known as, Phaeophyta, (or brown algae), kelp grows best in cold water climates exposed to waves & currents that are rich in nutrients and provide a rocky base for growth. And of course they are sun worshippers! Kelp can sustain itself and grow because of its ability to synthesize carbohydrates using energy from the sun, a process known as photosynthesis.
Northern California hosts some of the most magnificent kelp forests in the
world. Along its coastline you’ll find the Monterey Bay National Marine
Sanctuary, which protects the marine habitats that are home to so many
wonderful plants and animals, including the majestic giant kelp. The anatomy
of a giant kelp plant is similar to that of a tree – where trees have roots,
kelp have "holdfasts", root-like organs that anchor the kelp to rocks on the
ocean floor. Where trees have trunks, kelp have "stipes", long
tubular-shafts that connect the holdfast to the kelp’s
blades/bladders/fronds. Blades, bladders, and fronds are the equivalent of a
tree’s branches and leaves - blades are the leaf like appendages where
photosynthesis occurs, bladders are the bubbly air-filled sacs that buoy the
kelp towards the surface, and fronds are the multiple stems of blades and
bladders that extend and grow out to form canopies on the water’s surface.
Now that you know the basic botany of kelp, let me tell you a little bit about who keeps house in this self-sustaining eco-system. On the kelp forest floor you’ll find brittle stars, camouflaged kelp crabs, red abalone, and sea urchins seeking shelter in the base rock crevices from hungry sea-otters – but these floor dwellers must remain vigilant as predatory Cabezon fish and horn sharks also live in this holdfast neighborhood. As you move up along the stipes, jeweled top snails graze on smaller animals and the kelp itself while senorita fish flirt in large groups and schools of rock fish congregate on the edges, nibbling plankton and jellies that float in close enough. Colonies of bryozoans encrust and share the blades along with turban snails and a variety of smaller invertebrates. Up near the canopy, kelp fish take on the hue and movement of the swaying fronds and those aforementioned pesky sea-otters chill on the surface using the canopy as an aqua-hammock while they groom and digest.
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