Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-off

What happened

Researchers said Monday that a bacteria related to cholera was responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars off the Pacific Coast of North America since 2013. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, appears to solve a mystery that baffled marine biologists for more than a decade.

Who said what

Entire sea star colonies fell victim to the wasting disease, which starts with "writhing arms" falling off the starfish before skin lesions form and "internal organs ooze out from the inside," leaving "nothing more than a puddle of goo," The Washington Post said. "It’s really quite gruesome," said study co-author Alyssa Gehman, a marine disease ecologist at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, to The Associated Press.
The disease devastated more than 20 species of sea stars, but the scientists focused their research on the worst-hit, the sunflower sea star, whose numbers have plummeted by more than 90%. They determined the culprit was the Vibrio pectenicida bacteria after four years of experiments. An earlier study had attributed the epidemic to a virus, one of "many false leads and twists and turns" in the quest to isolate the pathogen, the AP said.

What next?

"Now that scientists know the cause," the AP said, they have a "better shot" at successful intervention. The "ultimate goal," said the Post, is to "breed a galaxy of disease-resistant starfish and restore the ecosystems in which they live," primarily through the sea stars eating the kelp-destroying sea urchins that thrived in their absence.

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