A team of researchers in San Diego have successfully spawned and cross-fertilized gametes from the critically endangered sunflower sea star, resulting in fertile eggs. This breakthrough is part of an ongoing collaborative effort to keep the species from going extinct after a mass die-off killed an estimated 90% of the population in the past decade.
Sunflower sea stars, among the largest in the world, have been hit hard by sea star wasting syndrome in recent years. That disease, which is thought to have been exacerbated by unusually warm ocean waters, has killed at least five billion sea stars and reduced species and genetic diversity…
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