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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