Keystone Species

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Recommended: Ecological importance of sea otters

Keystone species maintain ecological communities by providing structure and balance for their habitat. The concept behind a keystone species is that they support species diversity through their presence, activities and abundance within the community (Mills et.al. 1993). If a disturbance happens within the community and the keystone species disappears, the organization and diversity drastically shifts. To be defined as a keystone species, there are a few characteristics a species must demonstrate. The first is that their presence within the community must help structure and assist the diversity of their community (Mills et.al. 1993). The second is that they must have some importance to their community in relation to the other species who live there (Mills et.al 1993). The keystone species are at the top of the community structure, with few, if any, predators. They control the population density of the primary consumer who consumes the primary producer (Mills et.al. 1993). Sea otters, which typically live in tidal areas off the western coasts of the United States and Alaska, are a common example of a widely studied keystone species.
Sea otters, or Enhydra lutris, are keystone species to kelp forests because of their importance in maintaining the food web structure. They are top marine predators that are easy to observe because they live close to the shore (Laidre and Jameson 2006). Sea otters have low reproductive rates and have fragile dispersal capabilities (Estes et.al. 1982). They are classified as carnivores. Their average diet consists of benthic invertebrates such as sea urchins, turban snails, red urchins, bivalves and chitons (Duggins 1980). Sea otters typically have an up to thirty percent daily nutritional requirement of...

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...ry Regions between Kelp Beds and Deforested Areas. Ecology. 84:174-185.

Kvitek, A., J. Oliver, A. DeGange et. al. 1992. Changes in Alaskan Soft-Bottom Prey Communities Along a Gradient in Sea Otter Predation. Ecological Society of America. 73:413-428.

Laidre, K., R. Jameson and J. Jameson. 2006. Foraging Patterns and Prey Selection in an Increasing and Expanding Sea Otter Population. Journal of Mammalogy. 87:799-807.

Mills, L., M. Solué and D. Doak. 1993. The Keystone-Species concept in Ecology and Conservation. BioScience. 43:219-224.

Reisewitz, S., J. Estes and C. Simenstad et al. 2006. Indirect Food Web Interactions: Sea Otters and Kelp Forest Fishes in the Aleutian Archipelago. Oecologia. 146:623-631.

Williams, T., J. Estes, D. Doak et al. 2004. Killer Appetites: Assessing the Role of Predators in Ecological Communities. 2004. Ecology. 85:3373-3384.

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