Purple Sea Urchin

Purple sea urchins have become the poster species for keystone predation collapse in California. Following the sunflower sea star die-off and continued sea otter absence from much of their historical range, purple urchin populations exploded 10,000% in some areas. They've created vast urchin barrens along hundreds of miles of coastline—ecological deserts where once-lush kelp forests stood.

The purple urchin explosion demonstrates what happens when keystone control fails entirely. Unlike red urchins, purple urchins can survive in barrens by entering a zombie-like starvation state, waiting for kelp to return. This makes their barrens self-perpetuating: they suppress kelp regrowth and survive indefinitely on almost nothing. The ecosystem enters a stable but degraded state that resists recovery.

The business parallel is extractive participants that create stable but degraded markets. Purple urchins are like patent trolls, predatory lenders, or platform extractors who can survive on minimal activity while preventing market recovery. They don't need a healthy ecosystem; they just need to survive in the ruins. Purple urchin barrens show that some degraded states are self-perpetuating—the degraders have adapted to survive degradation, making restoration harder than prevention.