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NATURE

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 A Horrible Condition Turning Star sh Into Goo Has Finally Been
Identi ed
TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS 21 JANUARY 2021

In 2013, the lives of millions of sea stars were mysteriously extinguished. Limbs that were once
strong, probing arms searching for sustenance, shrivelled and tore themselves away from the rest
of their bodies and melted into a sickly goo.

"There were arms everywhere," ecologist Drew Harvell told The Atlantic's Ed Yong last year. "It
looked like a blast zone."

The dismal remains of these animals, who are usually capable of regenerating their own limbs,
were strewn along the entire West Coast of North America, in one of the largest mass wildlife
mortality events ever recorded. Over 20 species of sea stars were perishing.

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 In some areas, sun ower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) populations dropped by an average of
around 90 percent in weeks, a loss that saw this once common and abundant species vanish from
most of its range in just a few years.

The culprit causing this sea star wasting (SSW) even got to star sh in captivity, killing individual
animals within days.

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 Leg of Pisaster ochraceus disintegrating from sea star wasting syndrome. (Elizabeth Cerny-Chipman/Oregon State
University/CC BY-SA 2.0)

This led scientists to suspect some sort of pathogen, like a virus or bacterium, was infecting these
stunning sea creatures. However, subsequent studies exonerated the lead viral suspect.

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 Meanwhile, more sea star deaths followed around the globe, including half a world away in Port
Phillip Bay, Australia.

Now, San Francisco State University marine biologist Citlalli Aquino and colleagues have nally
unravelled the mystery, showing something much more complicated was going on. 

By comparing the types of bacteria within healthy sea stars and those su ering from the wasting
disease, the researchers found bacteria that thrive in low oxygen environments were abundant in
the sick animals, as were copiotrophs - bacteria that like high-nutrient environments.

Experiments back in the lab con rmed that depleting water of oxygen caused tissue-melting lesions
in 75 percent of sea stars. Adding excess nutrients or phytoplankton to the water also caused the
sea star's health to decline.

Re-analysing tissue samples from the 2013 event, the researchers detected excess nitrogen - a sign
these animals su ocated to death. 

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 "Sea stars di use oxygen over their outer surface through little structures called papulae, or skin
gills," explained Cornell University marine microbiologist Ian Hewson. "If there is not enough
oxygen surrounding the papulae, the star sh can't breathe."

These microorganisms aren't directly causing disease, but stealing the sea stars' oxygen supply
when increased levels of organic matter are triggering the microbes to bloom. As a result, the sea
stars literally drown in their own environment. Then their decaying bodies further increase
nutrients for the microbes, creating a horrible feedback loop of sea star death.

Aquino and team noted most SSW events are reported in late fall or summer, when phytoplankton
that increase levels of nutrients in the water via photosynthesis are more abundant.

Warmer temperatures are known drivers of phytoplankton blooms, and the sea star wasting event
in Australia followed the longest and most intense heat wave on record. Sea star wasting events
elsewhere have also followed increased sea temperatures.

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 "Warmer waters can't have as much oxygen [compared with colder water] just by physics alone,"
Hewson told Erin Garcia de Jesus at Science News.

None of this bodes well for our future on a warming planet.

University of Vermont biologist Melissa Pespeni, who was not involved in the study, told Science
News this complicated tangle of biological and environmental factors is "a new kind of idea for
[disease] transmission."

Devastating repercussions from the loss of these precious stars of the sea have already echoed out
across entire ecosystems. The sun ower star is a voracious predator with up to 24 arms that span
as far as 1 metre (3.3 ft), feeling their way across the sea oor for sea urchins, snails, and other
invertebrates to devour.

Without the sun ower and other sea stars keeping sea urchins in check, these herbivores are eating
their way through giant kelp forests. By 2016, sea urchins had already reduced kelp populations by
80 percent in some areas, decimating these once thriving underwater forests.

"This is a very clear example of a trophic cascade, which is an ecological domino e ect triggered by
changes at the end of a food chain," said Simon Fraser University marine ecologist Isabelle Côté,
who investigated the environmental aftermath last year. 

"It's a stark reminder that everything is connected to everything else."

This research was published in Frontiers in Microbiology.

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