In 2015, we received reports of sea stars in the New England Region dying from what sounded like Sea Star Wasting Syndrome. We have since launched an investigation to study densoviruses among sea star populations in this region. As part of this project, Elliot traveled to Shoals Marine Lab during the summer of 2016 to collect tissues from sea stars to screen for densoviruses. Elliot has also been collaborating with scientists from the Ocean Genome Legacy at Northeastern University as part of this project.

Publications from this Expedition:

Jackson EW, Pepe-Ranney C, Johnson MR, Distel D, Hewson I (2020) “A highly prevalent and pervasive densovirus discovered among sea stars from the North American Atlantic Coast” Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Jackson EW, Wilhelm RC, Johnson MR, Lutz HL, Danforth I, Gaydos JK, Hart MW, Hewson I (2020) “Diversity of sea star-associated densoviruses and transcribed endogenized viral elements of densovirus origin” Journal of Virology DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01594-20

Jackson EW, Pepe-Ranney C, Debenport SJ, Buckley DH, Hewson I (2018) “The microbial landscape of sea star and anatomical and interspecies variability of their microbiome” Frontiers in Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01829