Editorial: Opening the black box of kelps: Response of early life stages to anthropogenic stressors

Kelps form marine forests along world’s coastlines, providing valuable ecosystem goods and services, either directly as a source offood or medicinal products, or indirectly as biogenic habitats or carbon sink agents (Teagle et al., 2017; Wernberg et al., 2019). However, kelp forests are currently under threat due to anthropogenic climate change with latitudinal range shifts and large-scale declines at a global scale (Smale et al., 2019; Wernberg et al., 2019). Most studies on the impact of anthropogenic stressors on kelps have focused on the macroscopic sporophyte stage of the haploid-diploid life cycle (Schiel and Foster, 2006; Veenhof et al., 2022). However, the microscopic stages considered as the “black box” of kelps due to the complexity of studying them in situ, have been suggested to play a crucial role in the persistence of populations that experience sporophyte mortality after large-scale disturbances (McConnico and Foster, 2005; Barradas et al., 2011) as they can persist as “seed bank” analogues under adverse conditions (Hoffmann and Santelices, 1991; Veenhof et al., 2022). This Research Topic is a collection of 8 articles contributing to opening the “black box” of kelps by providing greater insight into how microscopic life stages of kelps are affected by anthropogenic climate change, helping to predict the persistence of these foundation species and therefore the fate of ecosystems and coastal communities. These studies highlight that the response of kelp early life stages to stressors can be strongly dependent on the population and thermal history.

Australian Research Council DP190100058, DP200100201

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