![]() ![]() The forest system drifts away piece by piece. They will consume more and more kelp until the forest becomes a sea-bottom clear-cut, a barren ruin. Without the otter, urchins are unregulated. Otters feed on the urchins and thus keep their population from expanding. ![]() Urchins feed on the base stalk of the kelp when eaten through, the long strands either drift out to sea or are washed ashore. The kelp forest is a rich system of interacting kelp-reliant species: no kelp, no forest, no species, no ecosystem. The kelp–sea urchin–otter dynamic along North America’s western coast is a classic example of how natural checks and balances operate on populations. While that species may flourish for a time as it dominates its world, the fact of its biological single-mindedness to eat, breed and eat some more can lead to the collapse of the system that supported it to begin with. Absent population growth controls-predators or herbivores, for example-a species may take over an ecosystem. ![]() When supplied ample resources, all life forms have the reproductive capacity to grow exponentially, as depicted in the well-known J-curve graph. ![]()
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