Problem
a) What are typical symptoms of the disease?
b) Has anything like this ever happened before? If so, then when?
c) When, and where, did we see the current epidemic first develop? Which sea stars did it affect?
d) MaST had a large group of big sunflower stars (Pyncopodia helianthoides) in a saltwater tank, in Fall 2013. How has this species been affected by SSWS?
e) Is the disease contagious? Does one species of sea star catch it from another? What do we know, or not know?
f) What connection do we think there is between SSWS and the Fukushima nuclear disaster?
g) What is a "keystone species," and how are sea stars related to the keystone species concept?