A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Canada and one in the U.S. has found that eelgrass genetic diversity increases when sea otters live in eelgrass meadows. In their paper published in the journal ...
Sea otters have long been recognized as a classic example of a keystone species, a dominant predator that maintains the balance of kelp forest ecosystems by controlling populations of sea urchins, which are voracious kelp ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 8, 2021
0
1662
In 2015, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich coauthored a study declaring the world's sixth mass extinction was underway. Five years later, Ehrlich and colleagues at other institutions have a grim update: the extinction rate ...
Ecology
Jun 1, 2020
8
682
A massive, wolf-sized otter that lived about 6 million years ago may have been a dominant predator in its time, according to a new study analyzing the animal's jaws.
Archaeology
Nov 9, 2017
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309
A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Germany and Kuwait has found that sea otter dental enamel is approximately two and a half times as strong as human dental enamel. In their study published in the journal Biology ...
New research led by Monterey Bay Aquarium and the University of California, Santa Cruz, reveals that denser, and more sheltered, kelp forests can withstand serious stressors amid warming ocean temperatures. Published in Proceedings ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 7, 2024
0
43
In the several decades since sea otters began to recolonize their former habitat in Elkhorn Slough, a salt marsh-dominated coastal estuary in central California, remarkable changes have occurred in the landscape.
Plants & Animals
Jan 31, 2024
0
290
There are fields of scientific research that involve neither vast cosmic phenomena nor extremely cute animals, but those are topics of high salience in Saturday Citations, and this week is no exception. And we'll probably ...
Monterey Bay Aquarium researchers strengthen the link between sea otters and long-term health of California kelp forests in a new study released today. The paper, published in the journal PLOS Climate, finds that sea otter ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 18, 2024
0
451
Firsthand observations of a wolf hunting and killing a harbor seal and a group of wolves hunting and consuming a sea otter on Alaska's Katmai coast have led scientists to reconsider assumptions about wolf hunting behavior.
Plants & Animals
Oct 31, 2023
0
138
