Starfish may be flexible , but they ’re also tough . Yet a mysterious “ wasting syndrome ” is making starfish from Southern California to Alaska disintegration while still alive . Populations are being decimate up and down the west coast .
The LA Timesreportsthat the disease starts as a exclusive sore and then progresses as the wound becomes septic , degrading one limb at a time over a few day . Similar squander disease have spread through starfish populations before once in the 80s and once in the 90s , but both of those incident took place in warm water during El Niño and 2013 is not an El Niño yr . UC Santa Cruz researcher Pete Raimondi gave this , shall we say , colourful description of the disease :
opine a lesion on your fingerbreadth that you never treated . The bacteria would remain to build up and just eat away the flesh until it fell off . That ’s how this disease goes .
scientist are embarking on major data collection trips up and down the coast to observe and sample to get a grip on what ’s happening . There is n’t major care so far that the coastal sea star will be totally wiped out , and there seems to be Leslie Townes Hope that they can repopulate . But in the interim their reduced numbers may allow mussels to multiply , since starfish quarry on mussel . Tide pool politics getting intense . [ LA Times ]
Photo good manners ofSteve Mohundro / Flickr
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