In the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, a group of researchers reveals the culprit behind sea star wasting disease, a marine epidemic that has decimated sea star populations along the west coast of ...

Identifying a pathogen responsible for wasting brings hope for P. helianthoides, says Ian Hewson, a marine ecologist at Cornell University. The study may be good news for rearing sunflower sea stars ...

If you liked this story, share it with other people. Since 2013, sea star wasting disease, worsened by warming oceans, has wiped out 99% of sunflower sea stars from Washington state to Mexico, ...

Before 2013, divers on North America's west coast rarely saw purple sea urchins. The spiky animals, which are voracious kelp eaters, were a favorite food of the coast's iconic sunflower sea stars. The ...

After years of scientific sleuthing, a team of West Coast researchers reported that they have identified a particular strain of ocean bacteria that has killed more than 6 billion sea stars since 2013.

Finding a cause for sea star wasting disease has been a goal for scientists, in part because the animals are a keystone species. A large community of researchers has been waiting for this news.

More than a decade after a mysterious sickness began killing billions of sea stars off the Pacific Coast, scientists say they've identified the bacteria that causes the deadly disease. A team of at ...