Many people probably still remember this story. In the spring of 1990, the environment protection community and scientific biological organisations were shocked by the news: a huge amount of starfish were thrown up onto the shore of the Dvina Bay. Possible causes included fuel leaks from military ships, chemical pollution, or sudden climate changes. There was even panic among inhabitants of some of the White Sea coast regions
The staff of the “Kartesh” biostation came to investigate the accident and put forward a surprising hypothesis, that the death of starfish occured due to natural causes. Later long-term field studies of benthic communities confirmed this assumption.
The book by Andrey Naumov, who is an on-site participant of these studies, contains analysis of the data of the Zoological Institute and other institutions, revealed in scientific publications, various reports, official documents,
as well as in newspaper and magazine articles.
The author proves that the abnormally high starfish numbers in the storm surge area were caused by quasi-cyclic fluctuations in the population of the lower-level prey species.
Yet, the main goal of the book is to demonstrate that such matters can not be solved from a preconceived position, ignoring biotic interactions in communities.
The book is available free of charge (however, it is written in Russian). Please contact, Kirill Mikhailov, the vice director of the publishing house «KMK» at +7 495 692 58 94 (office), +7 903 752 65 54 (cell), or e-mail him at mikhailov@gmail.com
