WARMING OCEANS ARE TURNING SEA STARS TO GOO AND KILLING LOBSTERS, SCIENTISTS SA

By Darryl Fears  THE WASHINGTON POST British Columbia. The species has all but disappeared there. (Neil McDaniel)

Warming waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have increased the prevalence of diseases that are turning sea stars to mush and killing lobsters by burrowing under their shells and causing lesions, two new studies say. The outbreaks are so lethal, according to a biologist involved in both studies, that at least one species of sea star has vanished off the coasts of Washington and British Columbia and the lobster fishery, already decimated in southern New England, will likely be threatened in Maine.

In the Pacific, a wasting disease is blamed for the disappearance of the technicolor sunflower sea star. It’s also laying waste to the ochre sea star that scientists at Cornell University, the University of Puget Sound and Northeastern University, as well as other institutions, examined for the latest research. Their reports were published this week.

Numerous climate studies have shown that the oceans are warming. In addition, 30 percent of the carbon released into the atmosphere ends up there, leading to acidification that’s further destroying coral, shell life and other organisms.

The sea-star study was led by Morgan E. Eisenlord, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Both in a laboratory and at 16 sites on the San Juan Islands off Washington’s coast, researchers determined that ochre sea stars gradually became sicker as water temperatures rose slightly. Conditions simulated in the lab confirmed what the scientists observed in the field. As temperatures rose, the disease became more prevalent, and adult ochres died within days. The disease, plus death, was more prominent in temperatures between 54 degrees and 66 degrees Fahrenheit. For the adults, the risk of death was 18 percent higher at 66 degrees.

[Sea stars are wasting away on a wider scale on two coasts]

“The little ones seem to be more resistant,” said Drew Harvell, a Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who studies marine diseases and was involved with both reports. “It takes them longer to get sick, but once they do, they succumb quickly.”

The researchers say all sea stars have carried the virus for a long time, based on 50-year-old museum collections. Warming waters and perhaps genetic change in the virus appear to increase its potency, Harvell said.

Ochre sea stars mysteriously washed ashore in California in 2011, but no one knew why. When the disease outbreak was first detected in 2013, scientists thought it might be contained to the waters off Washington and southern Canada. But over the more than two years since, it has been identified as the source of mortality in 20 species from California to as far north as Alaska.

“This outbreak came so quickly, by the time we knew enough about it, a lot of it had already happened,” Harvell said. “The question for this year in our minds is what will happen in Alaska. The sunflower star that used to be very abundant in this area is gone. It used to be that you could see 30 in one dive.”

Ochre sea stars washed up on the California coast as part of a mass mortality event in 2011. (Photo by Ashley Robart)

The lobster study also traced the increase in epizootic shell disease to warmer waters. The syndrome — first observed in the late 1990s in Long Island Sound off New York and Connecticut, Block Island Sound off Rhode Island and Buzzards Bay off Massachusetts — is marked by the rapid deterioration of lobsters’ shells. It spread rapidly, particularly in females, which molt less often than males and carry their shells longer, exposing them more to the disease.

One laboratory experiment that examined the effect of the bacteria detected them at 50 degrees. At that temperature, the disease moved slowly. But between 50 degrees and 68 degrees, it progressed faster. Even after an old shell was shed through molting, the new shell was quickly infected. Lobsters showing signs of shell disease are not marketable.

[U.S. climate report says global warming impact already severe]

“Shell disease has devastated the southern New England lobster fishery, and now with warming, it’s led to a situation where the Maine lobster industry may be at risk,” said Jeff Shields, a professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and a co-author of the study. The study was led by Jeffrey Maynard, then a post-doctoral associate in Harvell’s lab at Cornell. It also was published in the Royal Society B as part of the journal’s marine disease special.

Shields said scientists will be on the alert for increases in shell disease levels off Maine this spring and will warn natural resources managers if that’s detected. To offset the stress on lobsters, the researchers could recommend targeting pollution, boat traffic and modes of transmission in the affected areas.
Darryl Fears has worked at The Washington Post for more than a decade, mostly as a reporter on the National staff. He currently covers the environment, focusing on the Chesapeake Bay and issues affecting wildlife.