Scientists say they identified the cause of the disease that turns into lively, 24 armed stars into goo powder.
Melanie Prerentice, a scientist at the Hakai Institute, is a part of a team that has spent many years studying the cause of the disease. Their investigation was published on Monday in magazine Nature ecology and evolution;
“The agent is bacteria. This is called Vibrio Pectinicida“CBC News told Partice.
After a decade, these beings are pushed to the threshold of extinction, experts say that this is the first step in the path of recovery not only to this species, but also to the critical support of humanity in the defense of humanity from climate change.
Twisted hands that go
The most affected species are sunflower stars, which once boasted from the west coast of North America, from Baja California to Alaska.
Then, in 2013, mass death occurred from the sea star wasted disease.
Alyssa Gehman was seen diving in the Burke channel, one of the fjords along the BC Central Coast. There she writes comments about the stars. (Bennett Whitnell/Hakai Institute)
And it’s a terrible end.
“Their hands turn to themselves, so they seem to be involved in puzzle details,” said Alyssa Gehman, a marine disease ecologist, who is also part of the Hakai Institute research team.
Then they tend to lose their hands, and then “hands will be away from their body.”
Soon, Gehman says the violations are formed and the stars of the sea dissolve and die.
The article estimates that more than 87 % The sunflower seas stars were killed in the northern parts of the west coast. In the southern range of habitat, the species is considered functionally extinct.
“When it first happened, it was just the dying fields and fields of the dying stars of the sea,” said Sara Hamilton, coordinator of the Oregon Rudadyl Alliance. Hamilton did not participate in the study.
“It was like something from a horror movie.”
Killer killer hunt
Several theories that determine the cause did not use or have been denied.
What the team did in this case was to bring in the laboratory to healthy sea stars and reveal them for infection. They did this in a few years to distinguish the cause.
Sunflower Star of Sunflower Sea at Kalvert Island BC (Grant Callari/Hakai Institute)
Gehman explained the process: “We take body fluids or tissues from a sick star and then experimentally put it in other stars, which, to the best of our knowledge, are healthy.”
The result of the article was that 92 percent. These expositions helped to convey the disease to a healthy star – killing it within 20 days.
These experiments have also revealed this Vibrio Pectinicida was the fastest culprit.
Experts are impressed with the diligence and effort of the document.
“Not only did they stop when they found one level of evidence – they went and found the second level of evidence and the third level of evidence,” said Hamilton from Oregon’s Keal Alliance.
Amanda Bates, a professor at the University of Victoria, also stated: “There is the way – basically you areolate the disease agents and linked them to the cause of the outbreak – and this research team followed those processes perfectly.”
Hope to recover
Knowledge of the cause gives hope for restoration efforts, experts say.
“Now we can go out and actually take tests and see the true spread of this pathogen outdoors,” Gehman said.
In addition, any captivity breeding programs trying to restore Sea Star populations can now screen and test these populations before starting them back to the risky environment.
The Hakai Institute’s scientist Melanie Pentice is part of a team that has spent many years studying the cause of the sea star waste disease. (Bennett Whitnell/Hakai Institute)
Hamilton agrees.
“This is one of the things we are most worried about about some of these recovery efforts,” she said.
“If we do captive breeding and external impetus, we really don’t want to introduce … a new outbreak of illness.”
Lost decade
Bates, who has seen the disease back in 2009, is careful about the hurry to recover.
“Although we know that the disease affects us as humans, I think we often forget that it affects wildlife,” she told CBC News.
“We’re a decade because it’s a really big mass mortality event and we still don’t have Pycnopodia [sunflower sea stars] recover in many places ”.
Hamilton said the introduction of the Sunflower Sea stars would be valuable again because of what their absence meant to ecosystems. The seashe population has grown, which also means destroyed by brown -tongue forests.
“Lipts are like the ocean goat,” she said. “They will eat anything, just cut things.”
Sunflower Sea star in Burke Canal, one of the fjords along the BC Central Coast. These species eat sea lakes, which are accused of eating the Rudadus Forests along the coast and produce a vibration effect in the food chain. (Grant Callari/Hakai Institute)
Restoration of the seas star means that the Rudadylus forests may flourish again. This is likely to mean the improvement of biodiversity, food, tourism, as well as coastal defense against erosion and storms that overload climate changes.
“This is definitely our ally in the climate crisis,” said Partice.
“I think that when we talk about the sea star wasting disease, we are not only talking about the species of the stars we love ourselves, but also the entire marine ecosystems that have collapsed due to this epidemic.”