Star pupils: students inspire key study on alarming starfish decline

Virus outbreak among sea stars coincided with warm waters, researchers found after sixth graders held fundraiser for survey

Emily Holden in Washington

Wed 30 Jan 2019 19.00 GMTLast modified on Thu 31 Jan 2019 16.05 GMT

Five years ago, a sixth grade class in land-locked Arkansas heard about a mass die-off of starfish on the west coast and felt compelled to help.

The 11- and 12-year-olds elected a chairman to head their fundraiser. They cut out paper starfish – more formally known as sea stars – and put them up for “adoption” for a $1 donation. They assigned them names and personality traits, such as Cherry Bomb, who “loves hanging out on her phone”, “rocks the legging style” and “is really smart but isn’t a nerd”. They sold T-shirts that read: “Save the Starfish.”

“We don’t have an ocean anywhere close by,” their now retired teacher Vickie Bailey said. “The students knew that they would never go to the coast, they would probably never get to see this type of starfish, but they were so passionate about what was happening.”

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Tens of thousands of starfish wash up on British beach following extreme change in temperature – via Nichola Sullings

Lewis Pennock 

Thousands of dead starfish washed up on a British beach following the 'beast from the east' weather snap.

The spectacular scene in Ramsgate, Kent, was described as "like the armageddon" by wildlife enthusiast Lara Maiklem, 47, who photographed the phenomenon.

She estimated "hundreds of thousands" of starfish and other sea life were washed ashore this weekend following the spell of subzero temperatures.

Lara travelled to the beach with her five-year-old twins, Edie and Beau.

And in a bizarre twist, they also discovered a pair of false teeth among the mass of dead wildlife.

She said: "It was incredible. There were starfish as far as the eye could see, there were fish in there and sea urchins.

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Starfish on ocean floor found to have well developed eyes

February 7, 2018 by Bob Yirka, Phys.org report

A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources has found that starfish living in the dark on the ocean floor have eyes on their arms that are similar to other starfish living near shore. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their study of the unique sea creatures and what they learned about starfish vision.

Scientists have known for some time that some starfish that live near shore have compound eyes in the tips of their arms. In this new study, the researchers have found the same to be true for many types of starfish that live in the dark at the bottom of the ocean.

To learn more about starfish vision in places besides the shoreline, the researchers collected hundreds of specimens (representing 13 species) from depths ranging from shallow waters to 1,000 meters below the surface—all living in the North Atlantic near Greenland. They found that 12 of the species had compound eyes similar to those found in starfish near the shoreline—the one lone species without eyes was a burrowing starfish that lives relatively close to shore.

In all of those with compound eyes, the eyes were uncovered, the researchers report, and were located on the bottom side of the arm tip, which means the starfish bend the tips to use them, pointing the eyes at targets. Visual acuity and sensitivity to light varied among the species they studied.

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Starfish Baby Boom Brings Hope to Population Turning to Goo

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | May 9, 2016 04:36pm ET

For the past two years, a mysterious wasting disease has devastated starfish living along the West Coast, turning countless individual animals into goo. But now, a record number of surviving starfish babies is giving some researchers reason for cautious optimism.

The Oregon coast currently has a thriving community of juvenile starfish (or sea stars), with some places seeing populations with as many as 300 times the typical number, researchers said. That's welcome news, as up to 90 percent of sea stars in Oregon showed signs of the deadly wasting disease from June to August 2014, reports a new study published May 4 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Starfish rising

The high starfish numbers don't mean the deadly disease is gone, however, the researchers said. Another round of the wasting illness could kill the juvenile sea stars, including the purple ochre (Pisaster ochraceus), known as a "keystone" species because of its influence on the marine ecosystem, the researchers said

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Scores of starfish suffer mysterious and gruesome demise along west coast

The cause of the most deadly sea star epidemic in recorded history remains unclear, but experts believe it may be a poorly understood ‘wasting’ disease

Brent Crane

Sunday 3 May 2015 15.04 BST

It is a gruesome death. First the legs shrivel up, followed by lesions. Then the legs inch away and finally detach. The victim continues to deteriorate until it is nothing but a plot of sticky goo.

This is the thoroughly unpleasant way by which scores of sea stars, also known as starfish, have perished along the North American west coast in the most deadly epidemic to hit the iconic echinoderms in recorded history.

From southern Alaska down to Baja California, sea stars have been dying in droves. The culprit, it is suspected, is a little-understood “wasting” disease known as “sea star-associated densovirus”, or SSaDV.

“It is unprecedented,” says Richard Ambrose, a marine biologist at UCLA. “It’s a really extensive decline of a really important component of rocky tidal and subtidal communities along the whole west coast. It’s pretty serious.”

While this is not the first time sea stars have been hit by a mass wasting event –similar die-offs occurred in the 70s and late 90s, and their cause remains unknown – it is by far the most destructive, extensive and perplexing. First observed in Washington state in June 2013, the disease has gradually spread up and down the coast.

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Mystery Starfish Plague Extends to Canada and Mexico, but the Answer is Within Our Grasp

By Pete Raimondi, University of California, Santa Cruz | May 09, 2014 01:04am ET

This article was originally published at The Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Starfish along much of the North American Pacific coast are dying in great numbers from a mysterious starfish wasting syndrome. As yet the cause of the syndrome is unidentified, and it’s not clear whether it’s a due to an environmental change, disease or or something else.

The early signs vary by species affected and include a deflated appearance, unnatural twisting of the body, and small lesions on the surface that increase in size and number. The wasting often progresses rapidly, leading to the softening of the starfish’s hard body, loss of arms, and eventually complete disintegration and death, sometimes over a period as short as few days. Similar die-offs have occurred before in the 1970s and the 1990s, but never before at this magnitude and over such a wide geographic area.

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Starfish deaths off US coasts continue to puzzle scientists

Researchers rule out culprits including fungi and certain parasites, but remain vexed by unexplained wasting disease

theguardian.com, Friday 2 May 2014 15.08 BST

Scientists are struggling to find the cause of a disease that is killing off numerous species of starfish on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, dispatching the five-armed creatures in a particularly gruesome way.

Researchers said this week that they have ruled out some possible culprits including fungi, some parasites and certain other microorganisms and are taking a hard look at whether viruses or bacteria may be to blame.

The starfish, also called sea stars, are being obliterated by an unexplained wasting disease that causes white lesions to appear before the animal's body sags and ruptures and it spills out its internal organs.

"The magnitude of it is very concerning. There's the potential that some of these species could actually go extinct," said Cornell University ecologist Drew Harvell, one of the scientists involved in the loosely organised search for a cause.

Harvell said she is concerned because the mysterious pathogen is affecting 18 different west coast species along their entire range. Pathogens that affect an animal's range in such a way like a fungus that has targeted frogs can be particularly damaging, she said.

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Mass sea star deaths off US west coast puzzle scientists

Starfish have been mysteriously dying by the millions in recent months along the US west coast, worrying biologists who say the sea creatures are key to the marine ecosystem.

Scientists first started noticing the mass deaths in June 2013. Different types of starfish, also known as sea stars, were affected, from wild ones along the coast to those in captivity, according to Jonathan Sleeman, director of the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center.

"The two species affected most are Pisaster ochraceus (purple sea star or ochre starfish) and Pycnopodia helianthoides (sunflower sea star)," he wrote in a statement in December.

The sunflower sea star is considered among the largest starfish and can span more than a meter in diameter.

The most commonly observed symptoms are white lesions on the arms of the sea star. The lesions spread rapidly, resulting in the loss of the arm. Within days, the infection consumes the creature's entire body, and it dies.

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Scientists Uncover Secrets of Starfish’s Bizarre Feeding Mechanism

Aug. 1, 2013 — Scientists have identified a molecule that enables starfish to carry out one of the most remarkable forms of feeding in the natural world.

A starfish feeds by first extending its stomach out of its mouth and over the digestible parts of its prey, such as mussels and clams. The prey tissue is partially digested externally before the soup-like "chowder" produced is drawn back into its 10 digestive glands.

The researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Warwick have discovered a neuropeptide -- a molecule which carries signals between neurons -- called NGFFYamide, which triggers the stomach to contract and retract back into the starfish.

The findings could have economic and environmental implications by providing a potential mechanism for controlling starfish predation.

Maurice Elphick, Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences who led the research, said: "These findings open up the possibility of designing chemical-based strategies to control the feeding of starfish.

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Mysterious stranding on Irish beach involved up to 50,000 starfish

By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/41673/mysterious+stranding+on+irish+beach+involved+up+to+50000+starfish/

It was a surreal and somewhat ghostly sight: that of perhaps 50,000 starfish that somehow had come ashore overnight, en masse, and perished on a secluded beach in Ireland. The Belfast Telegraph reports that harsh weather might have been responsible for last week's peculiar and mysterious event, on Lissadell Beach.

Bill Crowe, a marine biologist at Sligo Institute of Technology, theorized that the starfish (also called sea stars) might have been lifted ashore while feeding on mussel beds in the nearshore tidal zone. They were spread over nearly 500 feet of coastline.

"The most likely explanation is that they were feeding on mussels, but it is a little strange that none of them were attached to mussels when they were washed in," Crowe said.

A toxic algae bloom would seem another possible explanation, but no other type of marine life was affected. Only starfish, mostly adult size, were found on the beach.

Equally mysterious is that virtually all of the starfish were dead, meaning they had succumbed surprisingly quickly after coming or being delivered ashore.

Other experts agreed that the most likely explanation is stormy weather, and perhaps high surf that deposited the starfish on the beach.

"They turned up almost certainly as a result of an exceptional storm event," said Tim Roderick, an officer with Ireland's National Parks and Wildlife Service. "A storm hit the seabed where these sub-tidal animals were and lifted them up and washed them ashore."

The bizarre incident, like a smaller-scale die-off that occurred earlier this year on another beach in Ireland, remains under investigation.

Starfish, which can live up to 35 years in the wild, are among the most interesting critters in the world oceans. They possess no brains, and no blood. According to National Geographic: "Their nervous system is spread through their arms and their 'blood' is actually filtered sea water."

They're carnivorous and feed largely on clams, mussels and oysters.

"Using tiny, suction-cupped tube feet, they pry open clams or oysters, and their sack-like cardiac stomach emerges from their mouth and oozes inside the shell," National Geographic explains. "The stomach then envelops the prey to digest it, and finally withdraws back into the body."

It remains unclear who collected the 50,000 dead specimens on Lissadell Beach, and what became of them.

Wrasse and starfish gang up on sea urchins

SEA urchins beware: you are under attack from two sides. Wrasse and starfish are both partial to sea urchin, but struggle to catch it on their own. So they give each other a helping hand to tackle their common prey.

Ornate wrasse, Thalassoma pavo, like to eat the tube feet of sea urchins, but as the urchins keep their feet buried in the sea bed the wrasse can't get to them easily. Marthasterias glacialis, a starfish, also likes sea urchin but isn't always fast enough to catch them.

Nicola Galasso of Tuscia University in Viterbo, Italy, and colleagues have found that the two help each other out. When a sea urchin is attacked by a starfish, it uproots itself and moves away. That exposes its tube foot, so a lurking wrasse can sweep in for a meal. The wrasse's feast disables the sea urchin, allowing the starfish to catch it and finish the job.

The two predators don't seem to be truly cooperating as neither makes a sacrifice for the other. But their actions nevertheless benefit each other. It is further evidence that wrasse are intelligent and can adapt their foraging methods, says Galasso, who presented her research last week at the summer conference of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour in St Andrews, UK. She has also found that ornate wrasse have learned to follow scuba divers, as they often break open sea urchins to attract fish.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128284.300-wrasse-and-starfish-gang-up-on-sea-urchins.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Could starfish inspire new cure for inflammation?

Lurking in the seas of Scotland is an unlikely candidate for a medical breakthrough.

But scientists believe the starfish could hold the key to finding a new treatment for inflammatory conditions such as asthma, hay fever and arthritis.

The species they are interested in is the spiny starfish (Marthasterias glacialis), and in particular the slimy goo that covers its body.

The team says that chemicals in this coating could inspire new medicines.

While most man-made structures that are placed in the water rapidly get caked with a mixture of marine life, starfish manage to keep their surface clear.

Dr Charlie Bavington, from GlycoMar, a marine biotechnology company based at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, explained: "Starfish live in the sea, and are bathed in a solution of bacteria, larvae, viruses and all sorts of things that are looking for somewhere to live.

"But starfish are better than Teflon: they have a very efficient anti-fouling surface that prevents things from sticking."

And it is this non-stick property that has grabbed medical scientists' attention, particularly in the field of inflammation.

Sticky problem
Inflammation is the body's natural response to an injury or infection, but inflammatory conditions are caused when the immune system begins to rage out of control.

White blood cells, which normally flow easily through our blood vessels, begin to build up and stick to the blood vessel wall, and this can cause tissue damage.

The idea is that a treatment based on starfish slime could effectively coat our blood vessels in the same way the goo covers the marine creature, and prevent this problem.

Dr Bavington said: "It is a very similar situation to something sticking to a starfish in the sea.

"These cells have to stick from a flowing medium to a blood vessel wall, so we thought we could learn something from how starfish prevent this so we could find a way to prevent this in humans."

While many inflammatory conditions can be effectively treated, for example with steroids, these drugs can often cause unwanted side effects.

But scientists at King's College London (KCL) think starfish could offer a better solution, and they have been analysing the chemicals in the creature's non-stick slime.

Clive Page, professor of pharmacology at KCL, said: "The starfish have effectively done a lot of the hard work for us.

"Normally when you are trying to find a new drug to go after a particular target in human beings, you have to screen hundreds of molecules to find something that will give you a lead.

"The starfish is effectively providing us with something that is giving is different leads: it has had billions of years in evolution to come up with molecules that do specific things."

Having identified promising compounds, the team is now working on creating their own versions of them in the laboratory. They want to create a treatment that is inspired by starfish goo rather than one that is made from it.

Professor Page said: "Conceptually we know this is the right approach.

"It's not going to happen tomorrow afternoon, but we are learning all the time from nature about how to find new medicines."

Underwater pharmacy
While the starfish-based cure might be some years off, the race to explore the oceans for its medical potential is only just beginning.

A sea snail has already formed the basis of a new painkiller, and scientists are starting to look at a whole range of marine life, from sea cucumbers to seaweed.

Dr David Hughes, an ecologist from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, explained: "Some of the most widespread, widely used medicines come from nature.

"Penicillin is a mould that grows on bread, aspirin comes from willow trees, so it's not too surprising turning to nature to find useful drugs. But we've only very recently begun to look to the sea for a useful source of
medicines."

And with the oceans covering nearly three quarters of the Earth's surface, scientists have likened the deep to an untapped underwater pharmacy.

Dr Hughes told the BBC: "There is such a huge diversity of animals and plants living in the oceans and very few of them have been tested and investigated in any way.

"We know marine animals and plants produce a huge range of compounds, sometimes very different compounds from those produced by animals and plants on land.

"So many might have useful properties that could be brought into medicine and other medicinal applications."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11931039

'Starfish Graveyard' In Norfolk After Storm

Click to enlarge

Metro, 9 December 2009, p14.

Also:

Wednesday December 09, 2009
Neal Walker, Sky News Online

More than 10,000 starfish have died after being washed on to a beach along the Norfolk coast during a storm.

The creatures are thought to have gathered in the shallows to feed on mussels, before being swept ashore during high tide.

Nigel Croasdale, from Hunstanton Sea Life Sanctuary, told The Times the starfish would have only survived for a few hours without water.

"This type of thing may happen once a year, depending on the weather," he said.

"When the tide returns, the bodies are usually washed back into the sea."

A local resident described the scene on the beach as "a starfish graveyard".

Starfish feed by pushing their mouths out of their stomachs and digesting other sea creatures using enzymes.

If they lose one of their five arms they have the ability to grow it back.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Starfish-More-Than-10000-Starfish-Die-After-Being-Washed-On-To-Beach-In-Norfolk/Article/200912215496474?f=rss

50,000 dead starfish found on Irish beach

Friday, 6 November 2009

Extreme weather conditions have killed tens of thousands of starfish and left them strewn across a sheltered beach.

A carpet of pink and mauve echinoderms, a family of marine animals, appeared yesterday morning on Lissadell Beach in north Co Sligo.

The adult starfish, measuring between 7cm and 20cm in diameter and estimated to be up to 50,000 in number, stretched along 150 metres of the strand.

Marine biologist and lecturer at Sligo Institute of Technology Bill Crowe speculated that they had been lifted up by a storm while feeding on mussel beds off shore.

"The most likely explanation is that they were feeding on mussels but it is a little strange that none of them were attached to mussels when they were washed in," he said.

He added that if they had died as a result of a so-called 'red tide' or algal bloom, other sealife would have been washed ashore with them.

"These were almost all adult size and the typical starfish variety that is found in the North Atlantic but there was nothing else mixed in with them," he said.

Surveying the unusual scene, he placed some in a bucket of seawater to test whether they were alive, but while this prompted a slight response from one or two of the creatures, the vast majority were dead.

Tim Roderick, District Conservation Officer with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, agreed the phenomenon was most likely caused by recent bad weather.

"They turned up almost certainly as a result of an exceptional storm event.

"A storm hit the seabed where these sub-tidal animals were and lifted them up and washed them ashore," he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government said that investigations were continuing into how they came to be washed ashore but initial indications pointed to the stormy weather, which has been a feature in the north-west in recent days.

In a similar episode earlier this year, thousands of dead starfish washed ashore on Youghal Beach in Co Cork.

Scientists speculated that they, too, had been thrown on to the beach by an underflow, which was probably caused by a storm at sea.

Source Irish Independent

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/50000-dead-starfish-found-on-irish-beach-14554962.html#ixzz0W5OEynW0

(Submitted by Joe McNally)

See also: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/mystery-as-50000-dead-starfish-wash-ashore-in-Ireland-69372667.html