Welcome to Tornadoropa : Here you find News interest about Echinoids ( Sea Urchins ) as well as Fossil Echinoids and their Ecology , Symbiosis and Predation , about Storms and Severe Weather including Tornados , Thunderstorms , Cyclones and many more, and about Nature Photography including Birds , Insects , Other Wildlife and Landscapes .

Echinoid Ecology: Sea urchins, also known as echinoids, play the role of keystone organisms for many marine ecosystems. This is especially true for the herbivorous "regular" echinoids or Euechinoida. For instance, they control the growth of kelp forests by their grazing activity. In coral reefs, echinoids grasp off algae from coral rubble, thus providing barren surfaces necessary for the settlement of coral larvae and those of other sessile organisms. The role of deposit-feeding sea urchins in nutrient-deficient soft-bottom communities is not well understood but is probably of great importance for the energy flow in the deep sea.

Commercial sea urchin fishery as well as fishery on predatory fishes preying on sea urchins poses a serious threat on marine benthic communities and may lead to trophic cascades. On this page, which will be updated regularly, you will find various topics dealing with sea urchin ecology such as predation and symbiosis.

Storms & Severe Weather : Why " severe weather " in Germany? Of course, the weather in Central Europe is not comparable to that of the notorious " Tornado Alley " of the American midwest, although supercell thunderstorms and tornados DO occur. However, due to the local orography and the moderate climate influenced by the compensating water masses of the North Sea and the Atlantic, severe weather hazards are more or less uncommon events. Especially because of their rarity, severe weather events are an underestimated threat and cause fatalities every year.

Non-tropical cyclones, also called " Orkan " occur most frequently during the autumn and winter months. Cyclones cause a serious threat to people, buildings, farming, and forestry. The most severe storms of the last years were LOTHAR (December 26, 1999 which killed 27 people in Switzerland and southern Germany and caused a damage of 6 billion USD alone in Switzerland), and Kyrill (January 18, 2007, 13 fatalities and 1 Billion Euro damage in Germany). The areas facing the coastline of the North Sea and the large river estuaries are vulnerable to catastrophic flooding events (" Sturmfluten ") related to north-western storms. The last flooding catastrophe at the north Sea coast happened in February 1962 when numerous dikes broke and floods killed 315 people in Hamburg.