User:TannerSY/Sea urchin

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Lead

Sea urchins are spiny and small marine animals in the class Echinoidea. The urchins are often found on ocean floors across the majority of the world, the animals play a significant role in marine ecosystems.

Article body

Ecology

Sea urchins will often eat kelp and algae throughout their life as their main food supply. the act of the urchins eating the algae and kelp shapes the ecosystem. when predators populations decline the urchins can explode in populations growing quickly. This large growth in population can lead to overfeeding and other complications. The areas left behind by the urchins will lack biodiversity.

Reproduction

Sea urchins will reproduce externally. this external reproduction releases eggs and sperm into the water. Their larvae drift before settling in plankton and then become adults. Environmental changes and stressful environments an impair the development of the urchins and change the survival rates in a negative way.

Conservation

In the effort to restore balances we are reintroducing predators to the urchins environment and manage the urchin harvesting. In some regions there is a effort to help kelp regenerate to counteract the urchins overreach over certain ecosystems.

Research

Sea urchins are used all over the world inn efforts to understand their embryos and their rapid cell division. Their is a wide belief that their regenerative properties can be of some use in the medical field.

References

Lawrence, John M. (Ed.). Sea Urchins: Biology and Ecology. Elsevier, 2020.

Steneck, R.S., Graham, M.H., Bourque, B.J., et al. (2002). "Kelp forest ecosystems: biodiversity, stability, resilience and future." Environmental Conservation, 29(4), 436–459.

NOAA Fisheries. (2023). "Sea Urchin Overgrazing and Kelp Forest Decline." Available at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/sea-urchin-overgrazing-and-kelp-forest-decline

UCSB Marine Science Institute. (2021). "Ocean Acidification and Its Impact on Echinoderms." Available at: https://msi.ucsb.edu/news/ocean-acidification-impact-echinoderms

Cameron, R.A., et al. (2019). "Regeneration in Sea Urchins: Molecular Pathways and Biomedical Potential." Nature Reviews Genetics, 20(5), 305–318.