Sea urchins eat seaweed such as kelp.

Storms and large weather events, like the El Nino, can tear and dislodgethe kelp, leaving a tattered winter forest to begin its growth again each spring.

In ideal conditions, giant kelp can grow up to 18 inches per day.

Sea otters rest by wrapping themselves in kelp to keep from drifting away.

On the rocks where the holdfasts secure kelp fronds to the bottom live many invertebrates including abalone, sea urchins and sea stars.

Kelp is the backbone of Monterey Bay coastal ecology.

Some seaweeds are microscopic, such as the phytoplankton that live suspended in the water column and provide the base for most marine food chains, and some are enormous, like the giant kelp that grow in abundant “forests” and tower like underwater redwoods from their roots at the bottom of the sea.

The giant kelp canopies tower above the ocean floor.

Encompassing more than 5,300 square miles, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is one of the richest, most diverse marine environments in the world encompassing wave-swept beaches, lush kelp forests, and one of the deepest underwater canyons in North America.

In the last few decades, 40 percent of our world’s kelp forests have declined and some of them have disappeared completely.