A silent ocean pandemic is wiping out sea urchins worldwide

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/12/251211100618.htm

A fast-spreading marine pandemic is wiping out vital reef-grazing sea urchins, threatening ecosystems worldwide.

Date: December 12, 2025
Source: Frontiers
Summary:

A sudden, unexplained mass die-off is decimating sea urchins around the world, including catastrophic losses in the Canary Islands. Key reef-grazing species are reaching historic lows, and their ability to reproduce has nearly halted in some regions. Scientists suspect a pathogen but haven’t yet confirmed the culprit. The fate of these reefs may hinge on solving this unfolding pandemic.

…

A recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science reports that, over the past four years, a previously unrecognized pandemic killing sea urchins worldwide has also struck the Canary Islands. Scientists are still working to understand the full ecological consequences, but expect the effects on marine ecosystems to be significant.

"Here we show the spread and impacts of a 'mass mortality event' which severely hit populations of the sea urchin Diadema africanum in the Canary Islands and Madeira through 2022 and 2023," said Iván Cano, a doctoral student at the University of La Laguna on Tenerife in the Canaries Islands, Spain.

"At approximately the same time, ther Diadema species have been observed to be dying off in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Sea of Oman, and the western Indian Ocean.”

…

Cano I, Lorenzo-Morales J, Bronstein O, Sangil C and Hernández JC (2025) Insights on the last sea urchin Diadema africanum mass mortality suggest a worldwide Diadematid pandemic in 2022-2023. Front. Mar. Sci. 12:1665504. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1665504

[CanonRay]

1. A few years ago it was Starfish

We've f'd up the planet