Moreover, north of 29 degrees North latitude, kelp forests were gone entirely or 90 percent decimated. “When the heat wave happened, all of those northern kelp forests were basically wiped out in a couple of months,” says Wernberg. “The future of kelp forest communities in western Australia is … grim,” the study concludes. Extensive underwater forests of Australian kelps were wiped out by extreme temperatures during a marine heatwave in 2011. This represented “a 100-kilometer range contraction” as well as “functional extinction from 370 [square kilometers] of reef,” the scientists report.

Source: Washington Post July 07, 2016 18:29 UTC