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. Identifying the bacteria that causes the disease spells hope ...

Starting in 2013, a mysterious sea star wasting disease sparked a mass die-off from Mexico to Alaska. The epidemic has devastated more than 20 species and continues today. In this photo provided by the Hakai Institute, researcher Alyssa Gehman from the ...

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 giant sea stars, recognizable for their many arms, kept ...

A mysterious marine epidemic has erased billions of sea stars from North America’s Pacific coast. After more than a decade of unanswered questions, scientists have traced the disaster to a single bacterial species – an invisible predator reshaping ...

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. In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature ...