Mysterious Illness Decimating Sea Stars Finally Identified

A devastating bacterium has decimated populations of sunflower sea stars, predators that play a crucial role in their environment

A mysterious illness has killed billions of sea stars in the past decade. After a four-year search, scientists have uncovered the culprit: a bacterium known as Vibrio pectenicida. The team reported its findings this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The strange illness is known as sea star wasting disease, and it causes starfish to disintegrate to death. It is the largest marine epidemic among noncommercial species that has ever been documented, and it has affected more than 20 species of sea stars along the Pacific Coast of North America. Approximately 90 percent of sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) have died from the ailment, so many that they are now a critically endangered species.

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