Scientists Finally Identify Killer Microbe Behind ‘Terrifying' Sea Star Disease
Inspecting the tide pools along one of his favorite shorelines on Vancouver Island, Dr. Marley saw something new and alarming: sea stars in several stages of death, with their arms twisted or missing. The devastation went on and on. One of his favorite parts of the ecosystem — the big, colorful, 'supremely weird' sea stars — was 'dissolving away,' he recalled recently.
Since 2013, an epidemic of sea star wasting disease along the Pacific Coast of North America has caused billions of sea stars to twist and disintegrate. Sunflower sea stars, one of the world's largest starfish, lost 90 percent of its population over the last decade. Populations of sea urchins, typically preyed on by sea stars, overran and wiped out kelp forests.
The cause of the disease remained elusive. But on Monday, a new study identified the killer: a sneaky bacteria known as Vibrio pectenicida.
'I have been waiting for this for a long time,' said Dr. Harley, who was not involved with the research.
A team of scientists led by Alyssa-Lois Gehman, a marine ecologist at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, conducted experiments over four years to find the culprit, which was 'hiding in plain sight,' Dr. Gehman said. The findings, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, open many avenues of recovery for the sea star species that were previously unachievable without knowing the cause of the disease.
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