Current projects

As kelp forests respond to climate warming, we've found that populations of kelp growing at the edge of a species' range are often the most vulnerable to marine heatwaves or other environmental disturbance. Simultaneously, many of these populations hold unique genotypes that could be the key to future kelp forest restoration in a warmer ocean, presenting an urgent need to conserve these genotypes through long-term gametophyte cultures.

In this project, funded by an Ocean Action Grant from Ocean Wise, Blue Futures Kelp will collect spores and create gametophyte cultures from the southernmost range-edge population of Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) on the Canadian side of the Salish Sea, located near Sooke in southern Vancouver Island, in the unceded territory of the T'Sou'ke First Nation. These gametophyte cultures can be held indefinitely, and will safeguard this population's unique genotype in the event it disappears from the wild due to climate warming or other disturbances.