{"id":3483,"date":"2014-11-17T15:01:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T20:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3483"},"modified":"2014-11-21T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T14:59:18","slug":"virus-could-be-the-cause-of-sea-star-die-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/virus-could-be-the-cause-of-sea-star-die-offs\/","title":{"rendered":"Virus could be the cause of sea star die-offs<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3484\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/sea-star-wasting-syndrome_Alison-Leigh-Lily.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3484\" class=\"wp-image-3484\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/sea-star-wasting-syndrome_Alison-Leigh-Lily.jpg\" alt=\"The mysterious sea-star wasting syndrome killed many sea stars along the Pacific coast since 2013.  (Photo Credit: Alison Leigh Lily, flickr)\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/sea-star-wasting-syndrome_Alison-Leigh-Lily.jpg 640w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/sea-star-wasting-syndrome_Alison-Leigh-Lily-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The mysterious sea-star wasting syndrome killed many sea stars along the Pacific coast since 2013. (Photo Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/alisonleighlilly\/14697901103\/in\/photolist-oGsFqS-oqYrET-ooNAuK-on3H6B-o5y8bi-o5z6y6-ooNzVZ-on2bYS-onaxP1-oiaRZa-p7wVUV-nGzFWs-o1Rukr-nYYhzG\">Alison Leigh Lily, flickr<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Researchers announced they\u00a0have found a virus that may\u00a0be the cause of a mysterious disease that infects dozens of sea star species along the Pacific coast between Alaska and Mexico, including off the coast of Vancouver since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>A study shows that sea star wasting disease (SSWD) could be\u00a0caused by a very small virus (\u223c25 nm) known as a densovirus. Sampling of museum sea star specimens and the marine environment also revealed that the virus has been present in sea stars for at least 72 years and persists in plankton and marine sediments.<\/p>\n<p>The findings also suggest that sea urchins could be an environmental reservoir for the virus that may explain past outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/cgi\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.1416625111\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>PNAS\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>November 17, 2014<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Ian Hewson, Cornell University, U.S.A.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers announced they\u00a0have found a virus that may\u00a0be the cause of a mysterious disease that infects dozens of sea star species along the Pacific coast between Alaska and Mexico, including off the coast of Vancouver since 2013. A study shows that sea star wasting disease (SSWD) could be\u00a0caused by a very small virus (\u223c25 nm) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,113,1445,171,2284],"class_list":["post-3483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-conservation","tag-ecology","tag-sea-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/sea-star-wasting-syndrome_Alison-Leigh-Lily.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Ub","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3542,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions\/3542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}