kelp forest ecosystem

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a highly productive coastal marine ecosystem dominated by large brown macroalgae of the order Laminariales, which form three-dimensional underwater forest structures reaching up to thirty meters in height in cold, nutrient-rich, relatively shallow coastal waters along the Pacific coasts of North and South America, southern Australia, South Africa, and parts of the North Atlantic; kelp forests are among the most species-rich and structurally complex marine environments on Earth, providing food, shelter, and habitat for sea otters, harbour seals, rockfish, lingcod, sea urchins, abalone, and hundreds of invertebrate and algal species; their health depends critically on the presence of predators including sea otters that control sea urchin populations, which can overgraze kelp in the absence of top-down control