{"id":9665,"date":"2016-03-16T11:40:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T19:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=9665"},"modified":"2020-10-23T11:56:29","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:56:29","slug":"kelp-forest-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2016\/03\/16\/kelp-forest-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelp Forest Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Heather Fulton-Bennett<\/a>,\u00a0Phycology Lab<\/a><\/h3>\n

While every student at Moss Landing Marine Labs designs their own thesis, sometimes one comes along that really requires the entire community.<\/p>\n

Phycology student Steven Cunningham is looking at the effect of giant kelp,\u00a0Macrocystis pyrifera,<\/em>\u00a0detritus on the plankton community. Macrocystis<\/em>\u00a0is considered a foundation species because\u00a0thousands of species that depend on it for habitat and food. Steven is constructing an artificial kelp forest to disentangle the impact of structure and nutrients on the kelp fores community. With so many plants to make, he rallied the labs this past weekend, complete with movies and BBQ to keep everyone fed and amused.<\/p>\n

\"Kelp<\/a>
Kelp Helpers working through the weekend to get this forest built! Photo: Lindsay Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The artificial kelp is made from marine-grade polypropylene rope and tarp with concrete holdfasts that will be bolted to the substrate. With the artificial kelp being deployed at 25 ft depth and multiple stipes per plant, it came it thousands of feet of rope and thousands of individual tarp blades, each attached by hand. Over 30 people came to help and hang out, making the work go much faster. It was great to see so much of the MLML community come to support one thesis, and a good reminder of how we can never get through this degree by ourselves.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From the holdfast to the canopy, this kelp to mimic the structure of natural\u00a0Macrocystis integrifolia\u00a0<\/em>beds. Photo: Lindsay Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With all the help, Steven hopes to deploy his fake kelp in the next month!<\/p>\n

\"Thousands
Thousands of fake blades are attached to hundreds of polypro stipes to make up the plants. Photo: Lindsay Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Heather Fulton-Bennett,\u00a0Phycology Lab While every student at Moss Landing Marine Labs designs their own thesis, sometimes one comes along that really requires the entire community. Phycology student Steven Cunningham is looking at the effect of giant kelp,\u00a0Macrocystis pyrifera,\u00a0detritus on the plankton community. Macrocystis\u00a0is considered a foundation species because\u00a0thousands of species that depend on it for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":9669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[213,262],"class_list":["post-9665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drop-inblog","tag-phycology-lab","tag-seaweed"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9665"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20500,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions\/20500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}