Submitted by the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Marine Labs.

If you have spent time in our intertidal areas in the islands over the last several years, you might have noticed a significant decline in the sea star population. Since 2013, more than 5 billion sea stars on the U.S. west coast have perished from “sea star wasting,” a mysterious disease that has devastated the iconic sunflower sea star and triggered cascading ecosystem impacts. With sunflower stars gone, sea urchins — unchecked grazers of kelp — exploded in number, leading to substantial declines in kelp forests, a critical temperate-zone habitat.

At the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs, Dr. Drew Harvell served on the team that led groundbreaking research to uncover the cause of sea star wasting. Harvell called the finding “incredibly fulfilling and important” after so many years of effort. “For me, it’s the discovery of the decade.”

FHL Research Scientist Dr. Jason Hodin and his team have successfully reared hundreds of sunflower stars in captivity at the labs and are now testing their viability in the wild. Join us on Friday, Oct. 3, at Brickworks for a free public talk to learn about their remarkable and uplifting successes. Together, they raise vital questions: What resources and talent are needed to sustain such research, what is the cost to our marine ecosystems if it falters and what happens when funding is cut, or international collaboration is blocked?

Reception to follow. For more information and to let us know you’re coming, visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVgwkQPAVAwc3u_5w7980-AOwsr1QjlTqC4KS9DOebx662Rg/viewform.