Asterias forbesi Asterias forbesi Asterias forbesi, commonly known as Forbes sea star, is a species of starfish in the family Asteriidae. It is found in shallow waters in the northwest Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. "Asterias forbesi" usually has 5 arms but occasionally has 4 or 6. Like many starfish species, the upper surface is covered in blunt conical projections giving it a rough feel. Some of these are pedicellariae, minute pincers that can grip objects. The arms are plump, broad at the base and tapering to a blunt tip. This starfish grows to about in diameter with an arm length
Crown-of-thorns starfish starfish larvae in experimental studies gave support for a mechanism for starfish outbreaks: increased terrestrial runoff → increased nutrients denser phytoplankton↑→ better larval survival → increased starfish populations There have been further conformations of these connections, however research by Olson (1987), Kaufmann (2002), and Byrne (2016) suggests terrestrial runoff has little or no impact on larval survival. The conflicting data describing the negligible role of terrestrial agricultural runoff has been described as "an inconvenient study". There is also a flow-on effect in that where there are large starfish populations producing large numbers of larvae, there is likely to be heavy