[magneticnorth]

The difference is that the local ecosystem has evolved for forest fires; this is a massively destabilizing event where we can't predict what the "renewal" will look like and what species will go extinct in the meantime, or how polluted the water will end up being "normally" without the mussel population to keep things in check.

And I don't think the article is implying that the oceans will be barren forever, but that things are changing rapidly, unpredictably, and to an extreme degree that we have no precedent for.