What will get sick from the slick?
Nature investigates five of the Gulf of Mexico's signature species.
Melissa Gaskill
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100630/full/466014a.html
Far from the tar-coated beaches and clean-up crews seen on nightly news programmes, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is exacting an ongoing and largely unknown toll. In the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, floating oil slicks and subsurface plumes threaten a highly diverse ecosystem. According to a 2009 inventory by the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, the area around the ill-fated rig hosts 1,728 species, among them whale sharks, tarpon, tuna, sea turtles and sperm whales. With no end in sight for the spill, researchers are now struggling to understand the scope and nature of the damage to deep-ocean ecosystems through some of the Gulf's largest residents.
"The greatest part of the Gulf ecosystem is out of sight beneath the surface," says Larry McKinney, executive director of the HRI. This largely unmonitored region, he adds, is "incredibly sensitive to the toxic effects of oil and dispersant", as well as to the low oxygen levels associated with deep-water plumes.
...
By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon rig was anchored in waters more than 30 times deeper than Ixtoc I, near the nutrient-laden outflow of the Mississippi where many species feed and reproduce.Yet these open-ocean dwellers have effectively been overlooked in the effort to assess and limit the spill's impact.
"If animals are dying and we don't know now, then we won't ever know," says Eric Hoffmayer, a researcher at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs. Here, Nature presents a snapshot of the known and unknown effects of the spill on five of the Gulf's signature species.
...
[Species discussed:]
Species: Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus)
Species: Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
Species: Kemp's Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)
Species: Whale shark (Rhincodon typus)
Species: Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)
Nature investigates five of the Gulf of Mexico's signature species.
Melissa Gaskill
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100630/full/466014a.html
Far from the tar-coated beaches and clean-up crews seen on nightly news programmes, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is exacting an ongoing and largely unknown toll. In the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, floating oil slicks and subsurface plumes threaten a highly diverse ecosystem. According to a 2009 inventory by the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, the area around the ill-fated rig hosts 1,728 species, among them whale sharks, tarpon, tuna, sea turtles and sperm whales. With no end in sight for the spill, researchers are now struggling to understand the scope and nature of the damage to deep-ocean ecosystems through some of the Gulf's largest residents.
"The greatest part of the Gulf ecosystem is out of sight beneath the surface," says Larry McKinney, executive director of the HRI. This largely unmonitored region, he adds, is "incredibly sensitive to the toxic effects of oil and dispersant", as well as to the low oxygen levels associated with deep-water plumes.
...
By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon rig was anchored in waters more than 30 times deeper than Ixtoc I, near the nutrient-laden outflow of the Mississippi where many species feed and reproduce.Yet these open-ocean dwellers have effectively been overlooked in the effort to assess and limit the spill's impact.
"If animals are dying and we don't know now, then we won't ever know," says Eric Hoffmayer, a researcher at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs. Here, Nature presents a snapshot of the known and unknown effects of the spill on five of the Gulf's signature species.
...
[Species discussed:]
Species: Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus)
Species: Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
Species: Kemp's Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)
Species: Whale shark (Rhincodon typus)
Species: Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)