Envision California’s lush forests from San Francisco to the Oregon border. Now imagine that 90 percent of those forests disappear within two years. Laura Rogers-Bennett, senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, says that's exactly what happened to underwater kelp forests off Northern California’s coastline from 2014-16.

How disease, warming waters, and ravenous sea urchins combined to kill the kelp and close the red abalone fishery.

Extreme climatic events have recently impacted marine ecosystems around the world, including foundation species such as corals and kelps. Here, we describe the rapid climate-driven catastrophic shift in 2014 from a previously robust kelp forest to unproductive large scale urchin barrens in northern California.

The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth’s life-support system.

A sure sign you're a foodie: you can't get enough of the mind-blowing (and totally unique) flavor of sea urchin. It's thought of as a delicacy and can be pricey, and it's no wonder because those urchins are hard to crack into. We got chef Mark Dommen of One Market in San Francisco to show us the magic method to get those tasty bites out of this spiny creature. Bet you didn't know you were eating reproductive organs when you order this.

The last of the tiny black spikes is finally out. After days of walking around as if clumsily tip-toeing across hot coals, my heel is now free of sea-urchin spines.

In this episode, we talk about the species of sea urchin that we should be eating more of, not only because they are a delicious upgrade to many standard dishes, but also to help revive Pacific Ocean aquaculture.