Fukushima Report Delayed as TEPCO Gets New Chance to Explain

[RobertEarl]

81. Yeah, Sea stars. Good thing you think of them

MARINe researchers were also involved in collecting sea star tissue samples for pathology work aiming to identify the cause of the syndrome. The recently published paper by Hewson et al. “Densovirus associated with sea-star wasting disease and mass mortality” provides evidence for a link between a densovirus (SSaDV) and sea star wasting syndrome. This is an important piece of the SSWS puzzle, but we want to stress that there is still much work to be done before this mysterious disease is fully understood. Importantly, Hewson’s testing of sea star tissue collected from as far back as 1942 indicates that the SSaDV has been around for a long time, yet has never resulted in mass mortality on the geographic or temporal scale we are currently witnessing. Thus, while a culprit may have been identified, we still don’t fully understand the cause. The complete story is likely a complex interaction of multiple factors, and may involve different factors in different regions. For example, the emergence of SSWS in some areas appears to be correlated with increased water temperature, but this does not apply generally across the entire west coast. Finally, the discovery that the SSaDV is present in other echinoderms which are not currently experiencing mass mortality, suggests that these species could serve as “reservoirs” for the virus that could continue to infect sea stars for many years to come. Disease symptoms and mortality have also been observed recently in other echinoderms such as sea urchins, though it is unknown whether the cause is related.

http://oceanspaces.org/blog/update-sea-star-wasting-disease