California Spiny Lobster

Spiny lobsters are crustacean keystone predators that control urchin populations in areas where sea otters are absent. Before otter populations crashed, lobsters and otters jointly controlled urchins; now lobsters are sometimes the only remaining predator. In marine protected areas where lobster fishing is banned, urchin control improves and kelp forests show partial recovery.

The lobster case demonstrates how secondary keystones can partially compensate for primary keystone loss. Lobsters aren't as effective as otters—they're smaller, can't eat as many urchins, and themselves are intensively fished. But where protected, they provide enough predation pressure to prevent complete ecosystem collapse.

The business parallel is how secondary regulators can partially substitute for failed primary regulation. Spiny lobsters are like state attorneys general who step in when federal antitrust fails, consumer advocates who pressure companies when regulators are captured, or market forces that partially discipline bad actors when explicit rules fail. The substitution is imperfect—secondary mechanisms rarely match primary ones—but they can prevent complete market failure where primary controls have collapsed.