We believe this is long enough to become infected. When people assume that pollution is causing turtle tumors, we believe they are correct, but it's probably not in the way they think. Seaweed growth increases proportionately. Turtles are attracted by the excess of food. Sooner or later, an infected turtle arrives.
Turtles like to gather.
When turtles gather, cleaning symbiosis starts. Cleaners learn that tumors host edible parasites. More turtles become infected. More cleaners discover tumors are a food source, an escalating spiral. This cycle is based primarily on observations at Honokowai and how we fit them into what we have learned from research papers on the disease.