A facilitation cascade: tubeworms allow kelps to live where they shouldn’t

Hakai magazine recently profiled Matt’s work describing how northern feather duster worms, which build strong tubes from sediment and slime, provide habitat for kelp to attachment. Kelp, large brown algae which provide important food and habitat for many marine organisms, typically need to grow on rocky bottoms. However, Matt found them growing on a mudflat, facilitated by the worms. This is an example of a facilitation cascade, where one species facilitates another that subsequently provides important resources (food, habitat) to other organisms.