A team featuring Canadian scientists has, after years of testing, determined the cause of the devastating sea star wasting disease. The culprit is a bacterial pathogen called vibrio pectenicida, and has brought sunflower sea star populations on North America’s west coast to critically endangered status.

The mystery behind a catastrophic disease that caused the massive die off of billions of sea stars along the West Coast and confounded scientists for more than a decade is

With the sharp decline in sea stars, the sea urchins that usually serve as a food source rapidly expanded in population. In turn, they ate nearly 95% of the kelp forests in Northern California within a decade. These kelp forests help provide food and habitats for a wide variety of marine life, including fish, sea otters and seals, per the AP.