Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumStarfish babies return in droves following massive die-off
Droves of baby starfish are returning to California's shores after a wasting disease decimated whole populations of the creatures over the past two years along the West Coast.
Data collected by Oregon State University researchers show an unprecedented number of baby starfish, or sea stars, survived the summer and winter of 2015.
"Most of the adultsthe larger animalswere gone, or at least a large fraction of them," Bruce Menge, an Oregon State marine biology professor who co-authored the report told KPCC. "And what we saw sort of in their place was literally thousands to probably millions of baby sea stars."
Menge believes the surge is due to the lack of adults. Fewer grown-up starfish means less competition for the limited food supply. Now that juveniles are gorging themselves, many more of them are living into the spring.
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http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/05/08/60418/starfish-babies-return-in-droves-following-massive/
mehneh
(39 posts)shenmue
(38,501 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)ahead of us.
Soon the planet we created will be killing off many more of those of us at the top of the food chain, then we can catch up to the starfish.
DawgHouse
(4,019 posts)I think sea star sounds better than starfish. I haven't heard them called that before.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)Crash2Parties
(6,017 posts)The West Coast ecosystem was near collapse. When the sea stars died off, nobody ate the sea urchins (something affected the sea otters & other mammals, too). Without sufficient predators, urchin numbers exploded and they stripped enormous areas of any sign of kelp. Without kelp, the abalone started starving off.
It's probably going to take another five years for a new balance to be built up, probably with some big swings back and forth in the meantime. I sure hope the new babies are resistant to the wasting disease.