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Posts Tagged ‘sea star’

The Vanishing Sea Star

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2026| 1 Comment »

Photo: Jennifer Adler.
Three-year-old sunflower stars explore the kelp forest for the first time. They come in a rainbow of colors but are all the same species.

The kind of starfish or sea star I recall seeing as a child on Fire Island is the echinaster serpentarius, I remember how after a big storm they would wash up on the shore by the thousands. We children in our ignorance would collect handfuls and dry them out at home. We imagined there were plenty more in the sea.

Now we know that sea stars — and their habitat — are in grave danger. Today’s article explains more,

John Ryan writes at National Public Radio, “On a spring morning so blustery that the National Weather Service issued a small craft advisory, a Samish Indian Nation research boat, called the Chinook (Yómech), set out from Anacortes, Washington, just east of the San Juan Islands.

“A team of divers crammed into the cabin as the small craft bounced and slammed across Rosario Strait. They were on their way to pick up precious cargo: 20 endangered sunflower stars, raised by hand in a lab at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

“Sunflower stars are one of the Pacific Ocean’s most endangered sea creatures. For the past year, University of Washington researchers have worked closely with the Samish Indian Nation to bring this 24-armed creature back from the brink of extinction after a vast underwater pandemic nearly wiped it out.

“The choppy waters of Rosario Strait were only the latest obstacle in the tribe’s effort to bring sunflower stars back to traditional Samish territory.

” ‘I’ve had dreams about this day. I’ve had nightmares about this day,’ said Samish Nation biologist Sam Strauss. ‘Many things have already gone wrong that I didn’t anticipate, and I’m sure there will be a couple more.’

“The stars were supposed to be turned loose [October 2025]. Then divers found the deadly sea-star wasting disease — the cause of the species’ near-annihilation — surging throughout the San Juans. They called off the release. Six months later, it was back on.

“Sunflower stars can grow more than 3 feet wide and are the fastest of all sea stars. They cruise the seabed at up to 5 feet per minute in search of sea urchins or sea cucumbers to grab for a meal.

“They’re considered a keystone species, whose presence or absence can reshape a whole ecosystem. But the speedy predators have been unable to outrun a wasting disease that’s killed billions of sea stars. It took researchers a decade to pinpoint the Vibrio bacteria behind the disease that dissolved sea stars into goo. Researchers say ocean heat waves, amplified by climate change, helped the bacteria grow.

” ‘We definitely have lost a lot of sea stars,’ University of Washington research scientist Jason Hodin said. “We’ve lost 90% of our sunflower stars, we think.’

“Hodin runs the sea star lab at the university’s Friday Harbor Laboratories. ‘This was a really, really big outbreak,’ Hodin. “It spread from northern Mexico all the way to Alaska, affecting dozens and dozens of sea star species.’ No species was harder hit than the sunflower star.

“International scientists declared the once-common species critically endangered. …

“Inside the sea star lab, tanks of filtered seawater harbor hundreds of sunflower stars, from microscopic larvae up to adults as big as stop signs.

“The researchers have figured out by trial and error how to breed these little-studied animals. They’ve also cured some of them when wasting disease got into the lab. …

“Sunflower stars were never a big part of Samish culture, unlike salmon. … But the stars have played a supporting role in Samish culture by protecting kelp. Many kelp forests on the West Coast have been stripped bare by sea urchins. Sunflower stars prey on urchins, which protects kelp. …

“A dozen labs up and down the West Coast are currently raising sunflower stars, with small releases planned later this year in California and Oregon. It is unlikely biologists will ever raise anything close to the 5 billion sunflower stars lost to wasting disease.

“But they hope to raise enough of them to point the species, and kelp forests, toward recovery.

More details at NPR, here. No paywall.

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A Genome Bank to Save Marine Life

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2026| 1 Comment »

Photo: David L Ryan/ Boston Globe Staff.
A view of a Forbes sea star at Northeastern University’s Ocean Genome Legacy Center.

As I was reading today’s story, an image kept coming to mind: an image of someone in a burning house running out with a few precious items.

You’ll see why when you read Kate Selig’s article at the Boston Globe on a genome bank.

“On a rocky outcropping a few miles northeast of Boston Harbor,” she writes, “scientists are racing to build a library of tissue and DNA from ocean creatures — before it is too late. It’s a last-ditch effort. As global warming drives ocean temperatures ever higher, some species have vanished and the populations of others have plummeted. If climate change continues unchecked, many marine species could face a mass extinction, rivaling the worst in earth’s history.

“To preserve the oceans’ historical record, researchers in Nahant, a peninsular town jutting into the Atlantic, are collecting samples from marine organisms around the world and distributing them to scientists.

“ It’s not difficult to do,’ said Dan Distel, a marine biologist who serves as the director of Northeastern University’s Ocean Genome Legacy Center. ‘It’s not expensive to do. And of course, if we miss the opportunity, it’s too late.’ …

“The Nahant collection has informed hundreds of studies, providing a baseline understanding of how species are doing while also tracking global trends. The repository houses common local species, such as spiky sea urchins and flatfish with their eyes trained skyward. But there are also some ‘real weirdos,’ as Distel described them. A prized specimen from the Philippines is a preserved giant shipworm, a glistening, tubular creature that lives in a tusk-like shell. A petite marine mussel the size and shape of a plump grain of rice rests in a small jar.

“A whiteboard at its entrance decorated with drawings of fish, sea stars, and a crab displays the current count: over 31,000 DNA samples and 28,000 tissue samples.

“Distel is the ringmaster behind the menagerie. … In addition to his work at the center, he has dedicated much of his career to studying shipworms, a type of worm-like clam notorious for gnawing through submerged wood. Distel was part of an international team that discovered a live specimen of the giant shipworm, a find that drew international attention. …

“ ‘These guys are a great example of a nearly extinct species,’ he said, with a touch of reverence. ‘There’s only one place in the world where we know they can still be found.’

“As humanity continues to burn fossil fuels, the world’s oceans have stood as a bulwark to the most extreme impacts of climate change by swallowing much of the excess heat trapped by greenhouses gases. But that has come at a staggering cost.

“The surface layer of the ocean has warmed by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. In the Gulf of Maine, which is warming much faster than most ocean surfaces on the planet, the higher temperatures are forcing out lobsters, altering the migration patterns of whales, and fueling a population boom of invasive green crabs.

“The center was founded in 2004 by Donald Comb, a Massachusetts biotechnology pioneer. … Comb, who loved the oceans, decided to put up the funds to build a biorepository focused on marine species. The center became the first ocean-focused public DNA bank in the United States. …

“Large samples preserved in jars are stored in shelving units and a repurposed tool chest. They infuse the center with what students call ‘the low tide smell.’

“The real action takes place in the freezer room. Four mechanical freezers, rigged with alarms and known as ‘minus 80s’ for their low temperatures, store small tubes that contain the complete genome of an organism. A single freezer can fit thousands of samples. The center also has a liquid nitrogen freezer that chills samples so quickly that living bacteria can be revived. …

“Angela Jones, a Northeastern PhD candidate in marine and environmental sciences, has supplied the center with samples from her doctoral research on sea stars, studying two species in New England that have undergone steep population declines. …

” ‘It’s important to understand what the species are like now so that we can understand how they change under worsening conditions,’ she said.”

More at the Globe, here.

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Mysterious Starfish Dieoff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 27, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photo: Bennett Whitnell / Hakai Institute.
Sunflower stars and vase tunicates grow on the sea floor of Rivers Inlet, British Columbia, in 2023.

There have always been voters who care more about knocking a few cents off the gas they put in their SUVs than researching what’s going on with some small creature in the natural world.

But many of us do care about the natural world and believe that a dieoff in any one area can have repercussions for humanity. Everything is connected.

John Ryan reports at OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) about how scientists worked to “crack the case” of melting sea stars.

He writes, “Researchers in Washington and British Columbia say they have solved a deadly mystery that has stumped scientists for more than a decade. They have identified the pathogen behind one of the world’s biggest disease outbreaks: a wasting disease that has turned billions of sea stars into goo – from Alaska to California.

“A mass dieoff of ocean-shaking proportions began among sea stars along North America’s West Coast in 2013. Of 20 species affected, the pizza-sized sunflower star was hardest hit. More than 5 billion sunflower stars, or 90% of their global population, wasted away.

“With key predators of sea urchins largely wiped out, the spiny little grazers proliferated and chewed their way through kelp forests, leading to widespread losses of that productive ocean habitat.

“For 12 years, the cause of the wasting disease was either unknown or, mistakenly, thought to be a virus. Instead, the new study says, it is a strain of bacteria known as Vibrio pectenicida. Other Vibrio bacteria sicken corals and shellfish. One species, Vibrio cholera, causes cholera in humans.

“ ‘It is not surprising that it is a Vibrio,’ said biologist Alyssa-Lois Gehman of British Columbia’s Hakai Institute. ‘It was surprising because it took us so long to find out that it was a Vibrio.’

“Gehman and her coauthors are not the first scientists to claim to have found the culprit behind the worst underwater wildlife pandemic on record. …

“Gehman said the new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, avoids a key oversight of the earlier work by focusing on the sea stars’ blood-like internal fluid and not just its external tissues, where many other microbes live. …

“Gehman’s research team not only found much more Vibrio pectenicida in sick stars than in healthy ones. They were able to isolate the Vibrio, grow it in the lab, and give the wasting disease to healthy sunflower stars by injecting them with the Vibrio, steps the earlier researchers had not achieved. …

“The current study grew out of four summers of experiments at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Marrowstone Marine Field Station, a beachfront facility on Marrowstone Island, near Port Townsend, Washington. Avoiding microbial contamination was a top priority.

“ ‘There’s a lot of ethanol and bleach and betadine,’ Gehman said. …

“Researchers stepped in foot baths when entering and leaving the facility. Each sunflower star, after enduring a two-week quarantine, lived in its own tank with its own supply of sand-filtered, ultraviolet-treated seawater. Researchers avoided touching the stars, even with gloves on.

“In January 2024, after analyzing the previous summer’s data, the researchers found large amounts of Vibrio pectenicida in sick sunflower stars and hardly any in healthy stars. …

“Sunflower stars have become so rare that taking any from the wild is both difficult and potentially harmful to the species.

“ ‘We ran at sort of the bare minimum necessary to get robust and strong evidence,’ Gehman said.”

Continued research is under threat. The administration in DC proposes to cut the key U.S. Geological Survey budget 38% in 2026 and eliminate its biological research arm, which environmental advocates call “the backbone of environmental and ecological monitoring.”

More at OPB, here.

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