Giant kelp rafts wash ashore 450 km from the nearest populations and against the dominant ocean current.

Noting that 43 days is the minimum drifting time of the kelp rafts, the simulations confirmed that possible regions of origin could have been northern Tasmania (i.e., which have the nearest known populations of giant kelp), Wilsons Promontory, or somewhere along the pathway of the simulated particles. Keywords: barnacle; dispersal; Lepas; Macrocystis; wrack EN barnacle dispersal Lepas Macrocystis wrack 1 6 6 10/06/22 20221001 NES 221001 On 9 August 2020, two local marine naturalists (authors W. Marshall-Grey and J. Rankin) on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia noticed a significant amount of a large unfamiliar kelp washed up on a local beach. Giant kelp rafts wash ashore 450 km from the nearest populations and against the dominant ocean current Based on a general trajectory from northern Tasmanian to southern New South Wales, the maximum putative distance covered by the kelp rafts was ~600 km, which over 43 days equates to a drift speed of ~0.16 m/s. This is similar to other drift speed estimates for floating kelp rafts (~0.20 m/s, Fraser et al., 2010). [Extracted from the article]