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#Post#: 216400--------------------------------------------------
Sea stars are bodiless heads, not headless bodies - Rad!
By: Thetis099 Date: November 2, 2023, 3:10 pm
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The British expatriate: "The bottom of the sea is covered with
heads!"
HTML https://www.iflscience.com/where-would-a-starfish-put-its-hat-anywhere-you-like-theyre-mostly-head-71380
HTML https://media0.giphy.com/media/3o8dp0LfyczCGyTQJy/200.gif
#Post#: 216443--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sea stars are bodiless heads, not headless bodies - Rad!
By: Queenie Date: November 2, 2023, 5:07 pm
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I read this and it reminds me that I have a question you might
be uniquely equipped to answer: where have all the echinoderms
gone? When I was a kid starfish were *everywhere.* An absolute
pain in the butt for fishermen, a delight for us tide poolers.
Also sea urchins, and sand dollars which would on some days
actually litter the beach at low tide.
I haven't seen a starfish in twenty years or more, a sand dollar
in at least ten, and the sea urchins are no longer easy to find.
Is it pollution? Climate change?
See also: sea anemones.
ETA: I'm talking about new England, of course.
#Post#: 216452--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sea stars are bodiless heads, not headless bodies - Rad!
By: Thetis099 Date: November 2, 2023, 6:27 pm
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For [member=6]Queenie[/member]:
Well, I don't know an echinoderm specialist to ask and this is
out of my area of expertise (phytoplankton, Pacific Ocean), but
I will take a a stab at offering some very general information.
My best guess is that climate change is the main culprit. Ocean
acidification is coming to an ocean near you soon, but ocean
warming is happening faster, and warming will certainly change
the ability of many species to carry out their normal life
cycles and reproduce effectively, particularly those that cannot
migrate to more favorable water temperatures. Ocean warming is
a big problem for our local invertebrates and has closed
fisheries several times over the last 11 years. The Pacific
Blob, a giant mass of warm water, is present from northern
California to Alaska just about every year now, and it is doing
immense damage. It breaks my heart. I don't know the details
of how things are changing in the Atlantic, but I would not be
surprised if ocean warming is a problem near you too. There
could be dozens of other factors involved, disease activity that
I know nothing about for example, that layer on top of ocean
warming and other issues related to climate change to really do
in certain populations. I wish I had more to offer on this
question, but my money is on climate change playing a large
part.
This is a good review article about ocean warming and
echinoderms:
Impacts of ocean warming on echinoderms: A meta-analysis
HTML https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.10307
HTML https://media0.giphy.com/media/Dn3flFiV6vL8c/200.gif
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