Seaweed, Sea Otters, and Provision

Seaweed is found in a variety of sizes and colors, and many boat owners can tell you that it is extremely annoying when caught in the propellers of a motorboat. Fish eat it, and that huge brown sugar kelp can be eaten by humans. Nobody has offered me any.

Sugar kelp grows along the coastlines in colder oceanic areas. There is some trading off in the animal kingdom with this seaweed that demonstrates how our Creator cares for the critters. For that matter, kelp's benefits to humans is beginning to be explored.

Sugar kelp image credit: Flickr / Byrnes Lab (CC BY 2.0)

Seaweed uses photosynthesis to get nourishment from the sun, but it is anchored so it doesn't get pulled out to sea. Sea otters are not interested in chowing down on the kelp, but other animals are — and the otters eat them. In addition, there is another interesting benefit from the otter-kelp pact.

Tidewater-tossed seaweeds display God’s providence. Hidden in plain view, tidewater seaweeds are spectacular exhibits of Christ’s caring bioengineering. Seaweeds even serve as underwater hunting grounds for God’s hungry sea otters.

The giant brown algal seaweed called sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) sways rhythmically in relatively cold shore waters along the rocky coasts of the Northern Hemisphere’s oceans. As photosynthetic plants, these yellowish-brown, floating-frond seaweeds must access and exploit sunlight for producing carbohydrates, such as mannitol sugars.

You can read the entire article at "Even Seaweed Is Proof of God's Providence".