Algae, abalones, and otters: a tale 25 years in the making (cont.)

"In the end, it all came together with incredible reciprocal illumination: the phylogeny, the natural history, the habitats, and the distribution…. The conclusion is that the otters are actually responsible for the large size of these abalones. By eating the herbivores, they provide luxurious kelp beds up and down this coast. When otters are present, abalones stay in crevices where otters can't reach. They wait for kelp to break off and drift into the crevice — but this only happens with lots of otters keeping down the sea urchins and herbivores [that eat kelp].
“The whole thing started with a throwaway remark: we can't bring

otters into Southern California because they'll eat all the abalone — but how could that be since they evolved together? To do this sort of work, you must have the paleontology, the molecular biology, and the ecology — and those areas come from different individuals. There were no molecular phylogenies when we started this. We couldn't have done the same thing then. The things that I enjoy working on the most are those that really ferment and take time."

January, 2006