Why Are Sea Stars Dying from New Jersey to Maine? Divers Asked to Report Large Groupings of Starfish

July 23, 2013 — When University of Rhode Island graduate student Caitlin DelSesto collected starfish in Narragansett Bay for an undergraduate research project in 2011, she was surprised to watch as the animals appeared to melt and die in her tank within a week. After bringing it to the attention of URI Professor Marta Gomez-Chiarri, she learned it was among the first observations of a new disease that is now affecting starfish -- also called sea stars -- from New Jersey to Maine.

Thanks to a grant from the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, the URI researchers are collaborating with scientists at Brown University and Roger Williams University to try to identify the cause of the disease.

"There was a big increase in sea star numbers about three or four years ago," said Gomez-Chiarri, "and often when you have a population explosion of any species you end up with a disease outbreak. When there's not enough food for them all it causes stress, and the density of animals leads to increased disease transmission.

"Now that the disease is in the environment, it may be hard to get the population back to normal," she added. "Diseases don't just completely disappear after a massive die-off."

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