[MUSIC PLAYING]
IAN HEWSON: I started
diving I was 11 years old,
and it really exposed me to
this whole underwater world,
where normally people
don't go and see.
The diversity of
marine life that's
out there and the ability
to get out on the ocean
really attracted
me to this field--
basically because of
the diving aspect.
I want to go diving every day.
The oceans cover
70% of the planet.
And microorganisms make up
80% of the biomass out there.
So it's not the whales,
it's not the dolphins,
it's not the seals,
it's not even fish.
It's actually microorganisms
that are really dominant.
Having that relatively
under-explored area of biology
and having big question
marks about things
like disease and
viral ecology, that
makes it a very exciting field.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Environmental
officials in California
say there's been another highly
troubling report about what's
going on in the Pacific.
The scientists call it the
sea-star wasting syndrome.
Something is killing
the starfish,
and they don't know why.
IAN HEWSON: Sea-star
wasting disease
is by far the largest marine
disease event ever seen.
REPORTER: The arms crawl
in opposite directions
until they tear away from the
body and their insides spill
out.
IAN HEWSON: Divers that
are in the water now
that are not seen
sea star species that
previously were forming
large mountains under water.
REPORTER: Scientists worry
that the loss of sea stars
could have far-reaching
ecological consequences.
IAN HEWSON: These are organisms
that effectively influence
their entire ecosystem.
It's going to have
a profound influence
upon the entire coastline--
the types of organisms
that are, the nutrient
chemistry in those areas.
And we're starting already
to see that effect.
GWEN IFILL: Scientists have
been trying to figure out what's
behind the mysterious disease.
IAN HEWSON: The Seattle
Aquarium, the Vancouver
Aquarium, the Monterey
Bay Aquarium--
the animals in their
collections were
dying from the same disease.
So it was clear that
something was coming in
from outside through the
water, and it was actually
affecting them.
It wasn't any sort
of cellular organism.
It was something that was
invisible to the microscopy
that they were using, which puts
it in the category of a virus.
We were in the right
place at the right time.
We had a pipeline for taking
viruses out of tissues,
sequencing them, and
being able to identify
potential pathogens.
And so it was a really, really
rapid progression of research
that happened within
the space of months,
rather than the usual years,
to come up with an answer.
In every drop of seawater,
there's 10 million viruses
that, basically, we've
had to sort through
to try and find
the virus that is
responsible for this disease.
REPORTER: Researchers
collected tissue samples
and analyzed them for
all possible pathogens.
Ian Hewson is a microbiologist
at Cornell University.
He's the lead
author of the study.
IAN HEWSON: The sea
star-associated densovirus
is the best candidate pathogen
for causing this disease.
It was really important
to communicate our results
and our findings to the wider
public via media outlets.
And we were interviewed by
various different platforms,
including Science magazine,
CNN, BBC, National Geographic,
international radio stations.
435, I think it was,
news outlets covered it.
Facebook, Twitter-- we've
had all of those social media
feeds saying, hey, if
you see disease report it
to seastarwasting.org, which is
the website set up to collect
citizen science reports.
We are overstretched.
We can't get out to monitor
every single sea shore.
And so, engaging
citizen scientists
to go out and actually
report on where they're
seeing the disease has
been a major component
of this whole study.
REPORTER: Now that scientists
have identified the virus,
the next step for Hewston's
team is investigating
what environmental factors
might make starfish
more susceptible to it.
IAN HEWSON: Climate change
is having a huge impact
upon the biology of organisms.
To date, we have not had
any distinct evidence
that there's any one
single factor related
to environmental
change that could
be causing this entire
wasting disease event.
But there are unquestionably
stressors in the environment
that we are currently
investigating-- things
like increased temperature, pH
changes as the oceans warm up.
What's really astonishing
with this whole story,
it has brought the oceans
back into the classroom.
The sea stars are all dying.
Let's talk about the ocean.
Let's see what's
happening out there.
What do we know about
what might be causing it?
There's been a lot of
public engagement with this.
We had a check sent
to us by a high school
group in Little Rock,
Arkansas, for $2,000
that they raised to
save the sea stars.
And Little Rock is a
long way from the ocean.
Wider knowledge that's gain
is not simply basic research,
it's not simply knowledge
for the sake of knowledge,
it's made people more aware that
the oceans are indeed changing
and we do need to study
them to understand it.
