Sunflower Starfish

Sunflower starfish are the largest sea stars in the world, reaching 3 feet across with up to 24 arms. They're voracious predators of sea urchins, providing redundant control of urchin populations alongside sea otters. In areas where otters are absent, sunflower stars can partially maintain kelp forests by suppressing urchin grazing. This redundancy made kelp ecosystems more resilient - until it didn't.

Starting in 2013, a wasting disease decimated sunflower starfish populations along the entire Pacific coast. Populations crashed 90-99% within two years. With both otters (still recovering from historical hunting) and sunflower stars (newly devastated) unable to control urchins, kelp forests collapsed even faster. The loss of a 'backup' predator revealed how fragile the system had become. Redundancy that seemed like insurance proved insufficient when multiple keystones failed simultaneously.

The business parallel concerns redundant critical functions. Companies often have backup systems for obvious single points of failure but underestimate correlated risks. Sunflower stars and otters seemed like independent urchin controls - until disease hit stars while otter recovery remained incomplete. Redundancy protects against single failures but can create false confidence when backups face correlated risks. The lesson is that redundant keystones must be truly independent to provide genuine resilience.