FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. — Six years ago, I began investigating starfish dying by the millions off the West Coast of the United States from a mysterious wasting disease. The deaths continue; more than 20 species of starfish have been hit. These predators are important to the health of kelp forests, and their demise has thinned or destroyed these places and their bountiful biodiversity. A virus is believed to be the cause.
Before that, I saw corals on reefs of the Yucatán, Australia and Palau dissolve from the spread of infectious bacterial diseases. Right now, Caribbean corals are under siege from what scientists think is a deadly, highly contagious microbial pathogen.
As a marine biologist who studies disease outbreaks in the ocean, I am no stranger to pandemics. I have seen the devastation pathogens cause — and how it is amplified as the oceans warm. But I have also seen the remarkable adaptations that creatures like starfish, corals and abalones develop against these threats and the defenses they deploy. Like humans, they are resilient and immunologically cunning in ways we’re continuing to discover.
Now the world is seeing the deadly path cut by a terrestrial pandemic, spread by a new coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands of people worldwide as it continues its sweep. If anything good is to emerge from this, it will be in the quest to better understanding pathogens and their hosts, to find nature’s best defenses and to apply these findings to engineer a safer world.
The sea is a good place to start.
Right now, we are investigating whether some natural ocean habitats have superpowers to fight disease. In the tropical waters of Indonesia, our team has measured a 50 percent reduction of pathogenic bacteria and coral diseases in meadows of sea grass. These pathogenic bacteria originated in human sewage and make both people and wildlife sick.
We are replicating this environment in the urban waters of the Puget Sound to discover what special powers sea grass meadows contain that reduce pathogens. Vigorous production of oxygen by these underwater plants is certainly one line of defense, but we are also investigating how the microbiomes of sea grasses can regulate health.
Imagine if one day we could extract a critical defense against pathogens hidden in these sea grass meadows to use in medicines or diets. The oceans have long been a source of new antimicrobial agents and anticancer drugs, like Trabectedin from Caribbean and Florida mangrove sea squirts for liposarcoma, and carrageenan from algae to disrupt herpes and influenza viruses. We might benefit right away if we discover that humans living near sea grass meadows are more protected from deadly bacterial pollutants common in human sewage, like Clostridium and Staphylococcus.
We also know that corals living in protected areas of oceans with better-functioning, more-intact food systems have lower rates of disease. By preserving the intricacies of these ecosystems, we may be able to stop pathogens in their tracks — a lesson that can be applied to ecosystems where humans roam.
Scientists continue to study the epidemic that has struck starfish in the Pacific and has pushed one species, the once common sunflower starfish, to endangerment. But another starfish, the intertidal ochre sea star, is holding its own. Researchers are trying to figure out whether it is developing resistance, and how.
And consider the abalone, a marine snail with blue blood that fights viruses. The protein that gives the blood its color can control cold sores and herpes through a newly discovered mechanism that blocks entry into cells by the herpes simplex virus.
We are now seeing a recently discovered coronavirus infecting salmon in the Salish Sea off southern British Columbia and northern Washington. It is in the same group of coronaviruses as the one that causes Covid-19 and those that cause MERS and SARS. It attacks the gills, so in this way is similar to the respiratory diseases caused by related mammalian coronaviruses. It has been named Pacific Salmon Nidovirus. More research into this pathogen’s spread and the defenses mounted by its salmon hosts might offer us additional insights into how coronaviruses function and how we can curb their spread in nature — and in turn, reduce human infections.
These examples give me hope that we can find new ways to help protect us against the emergence of diseases. To do this, we need to figure out how pathogen-fighting processes work in nature.
We missed our chance to control the coronavirus pandemic at the beginning. The virus spectacularly evaded our best technology and, for now, has reduced the planet’s most advanced species to fighting it by social distancing and hiding in our homes.
We will eventually prevail with testing and vaccines, but the current triumph of this virus is a searing message to our cavalier species. Going forward, let’s focus on doing the basic science to understand what led to the emergence of this pathogen and use scientific understanding and technology to help protect us from these perils.
We need to pay more attention to the spread of infectious disease in wild animals and plants. Unlocking the secrets of those outbreaks on land — and in the sea — will help protect the planet’s biodiversity and perhaps save us from another pandemic.
C. Drew Harvell is professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University and the author of “Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease.”
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