FLICKR, EARTHFIX, KATIE CAMPBELL
Along the Pacific coast of North America, sea stars have been dying off in record numbers since June 2013. The cause of sea star wasting disease, which transforms the animals into piles of mush, has been difficult to pin down. A study published this week (November 17) in PNAS points to a probable culprit: a single-stranded DNA virus known as a densovirus, related to viruses found in Hawaiian sea urchins.
Inspections of hundreds of infected tissues turned up no evidence of bacterial or eukaryotic pathogens, which led researchers to suspect a virus. A team led by scientists at Cornell University filtered extracts from sick sea stars to eliminate any infectious agents larger than viruses. They found that this filtrate caused healthy animals to develop the ...
