Though kelp seems determined to turn your paddle out into a tangled mess, with its grubby little kelp hands holding onto your leash for dear life, it’s also actively turning choppy waves into a glassy session for you.
This is a really neat paper showing this effect - that kelp grows better in wavy environments. Weirdly enough, they don't like strong currents, just the oscillatory currents due to wave motion. The authors say that a potential reason that the waves help the kelp to grow is that, "as the wave exposure increase, waves are moving of algal fronds, which maximizes the influx of light on the lamina and increases nutrient uptake by reducing the boundary diffusion layer."
So it sounds like the reason may be that the waves allow light to hit all parts of the kelp and to push more nutrients into it for absorption. They also mention that the movement helps the kelp to self-clean, which helps with light and nutrient absorption as well.
Thanks for the insight, that was a fun rabbit hole to go down!
Interesting study! I was fascinated to learn at the Monterey Bay aquarium that kelp cannot grow in a tank without wave action.
This is a really neat paper showing this effect - that kelp grows better in wavy environments. Weirdly enough, they don't like strong currents, just the oscillatory currents due to wave motion. The authors say that a potential reason that the waves help the kelp to grow is that, "as the wave exposure increase, waves are moving of algal fronds, which maximizes the influx of light on the lamina and increases nutrient uptake by reducing the boundary diffusion layer."
So it sounds like the reason may be that the waves allow light to hit all parts of the kelp and to push more nutrients into it for absorption. They also mention that the movement helps the kelp to self-clean, which helps with light and nutrient absorption as well.
Thanks for the insight, that was a fun rabbit hole to go down!
Here's the paper:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00475/full