Disease-driven mass mortality event leads to widespread extirpation and variable recovery potential of a marine predator across the eastern Pacific ...

• Main Authors: Hamilton, Sara, Saccomanno, Vienna, Heady, Walter, Gehman, Alyssa-Lois, Lonhart, Steve, Beas-Luna, Rodrigo, Francis, Fiona, Lee, Lynn, Rogers-Bennett, Laura, Salomon, Anne, Gravem, Sarah
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: The University of British Columbia 2021
• Subjects: Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0406469; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0406469

Abstract The prevalence of disease-driven mass mortality events is increasing, but our understanding of spatial variation in their magnitude, timing, and triggers are often poorly resolved. Here, we use a novel range-wide dataset comprised of 48,810 surveys to quantify how Sea Star Wasting Disease affected Pycnopodia helianthoides , the sunflower sea star, across its range from Baja California, Mexico to the Aleutian Islands, USA. We found that the outbreak occurred more rapidly, killed a greater percentage of the population, and left fewer survivors in the southern half of the species’ range. Pycnopodia now appears to be functionally extinct (> 99.2% declines) from Baja California, Mexico to Cape Flattery, Washington, USA and exhibited severe declines (> 87.8%) from the Salish Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The importance of temperature in predicting Pycnopodia distribution rose 450% after the outbreak, suggesting these latitudinal gradients may stem from an interaction between disease severity ...