The cascade effect has been studied before in ecosystems devoid of sea otters, but this is the first time it’s being looked at in the context of the sea star wasting syndrome. The disease has affected other species, but P. ochraceus has been especially hard hit. My dissertation provides evidence that sea star wasting does not have uniform causes or population-level and community-level consequences across coastal regions. Similar die-offs have occurred before in the 1970s, 80s, and the 90s, but never before at this magnitude and over such a wide geographic area.… Sea stars are known as “keystone predators”. Sea stars are dying off at dramatic rates across the West Coast from Baja California in Mexico to Alaska. Their presence or absence makes a huge difference in the entire make-up of the ecosystem. The problem surfaced in 2013, when sea star wasting disease (or SSWD) was spotted along the B.C. Beginning in 2013, a mysterious disease crippled sea star populations up and down the U.S. west coast. Sea Star Wasting Syndrome September 21, 2015 Excerpts from www.seastarwasting.org “Sea stars along much of the North American Pacific coast are dying in great numbers from a mysterious wasting syndrome. A disease that wipes out a keystone predator such as the sea star can have ripple effects throughout the ecosystem. However, a coast-wide scale, pre-outbreak sea star density was positively correlated with pre-outbreak sea star density. Since 2013, much of our effort has focused on documenting the progression of sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS) along the West Coast of North America and across a range of sea star species. Over a matter of months, many sea star species died in record-breaking numbers, though Pisaster ochraceus —a keystone species known as the ochre sea star—was among the hardest hit. This research will most likely take years of meticulous study but the results will help paint a more holistic picture of the consequences of the sea star wasting syndrome. The condition is technically known as sea star wasting disease or as sea star wasting syndrome. and Washington coasts. It then rapidly began to lay waste to many as 20 different sea star species from Mexico to Alaska, said Gehman, a researcher with the University of British Columbia and the Hakai Institute. 2015: I wish to acknowledge all the experts who contributed their time to educating us about the problems of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome. But while such stressors may have something to do with the rapid spread of sea star wasting syndrome, the researchers now think the underlying cause of … Thank you to Peter Raimondi and Melissa Miner at the University of California-Santa Cruz and Jessica Schultz and Nicolle Cann of the Vancouver Aquarium for speaking with me They provided clear answers and posed important questions about this very … However, the intertidal community is already changing. A “zombie apocalypse” has been underway beneath the waves since 2013, with sea star wasting disease (SSWD) dissolving more than 20 species of sea stars into puddles of rotting flesh on the seafloor. To find sea star patient zero, the researchers plan to conduct more molecular analyses to determine how the disease became so virulent so quickly. Now, researchers at UC Santa Cruz have analyzed just how much the populations of this species … The wasting disease may be caused by a virus, but this is far from certain. 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