Assessing the long-term effect of exposure to dispersant-treated oil on fish health using hypoxia tolerance and temperature susceptibility as ecologically relevant biomarkers

Abstract

The ecological and economic importance of fish act as a brake on the development of chemical dispersants as operational instruments following oil spills. Although a valuable and consistent body of knowledge exists, its use in spill response is limited. The objective of the present study was to increase current knowledge base to facilitate the translation of published data into information of operational value. Thus we investigated the dose-response relationship between dispersant-treated oil exposure and ecologically relevant consequences by combining laboratory and field experiments. Effects were examined over almost a year using juveniles of the slowly growing, commercially important European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). A reliable interpretation of biomarker responses requires a complete knowledge of the factors likely to affect them. Interpopulational variability is of particular importance in environmental impact assessment because biomarker responses from a population collected in an impacted area are classically compared with those collected in a clean site. Our study revealed no effect of the exposure to dispersant-treated oil on fish hypoxia tolerance and temperature susceptibility at 1 and 11 mo post exposure. Similarly, no effect of the exposure was observed on the ability of the fish to cope with environmental contingencies in the field, regardless of the dose tested. Thus we feel confident to suggest that a 48-h exposure to chemically treated oil does not affect the ability of sea bass to cope with mild environmental contingencies. Finally, investigation of interpopulation variability revealed large differences in both hypoxia tolerance and temperature susceptibility among the 2 populations tested, suggesting that this variability may blur the interpretation of population comparisons as classically practiced in impact assessment. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;9999:1-12. © 2018 SETAC.

Intraspecific variation in tolerance of warming in fishes

“…In three studies with European sea bass, upper thermal tolerance (measured as TLOE) was compared to correlates of fitness (survival and growth) in populations of more than 100 individuals stocked into a set of semi-natural tidal ponds for a period of 6 months. Each pond sustained a natural food web with a carrying capacity for 2-3 kg of fish in the spring but much less in autumn, when productivity declined (Claireaux et al, 2013;Mauduit et al, 2016Mauduit et al, , 2019. The sea bass showed broad individual variation in thermal tolerance, with a nearly twofold difference in TLOE between the least and most tolerant fish.…”

“…CT max is a heritable trait (Doyle et al ., 2011; Meffe et al ., 1995; Perry et al ., 2005) that shows familial variation in Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. 1756 and Atlantic cod Gadus morhua L. 1756 grown under common garden conditions (Anttila et al ., 2013; Gradil et al ., 2016; Muñoz et al ., 2014, 2015; Zanuzzo et al ., 2019). Within individuals of a few species such as European sea bass, zebrafish or guppies P. reticulata Peters 1859, CT max is a repeatable trait over quite extended periods (Claireaux et al ., 2013; Grinder et al ., 2020; Mauduit et al ., 2019), which is a pre‐requisite for it to be subject to selection (Killen et al ., 2016a).…”

“…The relationship of thermal tolerance to individual fitness in the pond depended on the pattern of selection pressure. In years when selection pressure was weak (overall survival >60% over the 6 months), there was no relationship between TLOE and survival or growth (Mauduit et al ., 2016, 2019). On the contrary, in the year that was characterized by strong selective pressure (survival rate was halved to ≈ 30%), individual TLOE was a predictor of survival (Claireaux et al ., 2013).…”

Transport, Fate and Impacts of the Deep Plume of Petroleum Hydrocarbons Formed During the Macondo Blowout

“…It is speculated that these impacts are depth-independent and apply to fishes in mid-and deep waters as well. As such, sub-lethal oil exposure in later life stage fish has important ecological implications, which is further compounded by the fact that the impairments following acute exposure (24-48 h) can be observed at least 6 weeks later Mauduit et al, 2019), and in some cases on much longer time scales (Zhang et al, 2017). In addition to the typical cardiotoxic impairments, work on the DWH oil spill has highlighted a suite of emerging toxicity endpoints in fish, including: impaired eye development (Xu et al, 2017) with subsequent reductions in visual acuity (Magnuson et al, 2018); reduced brain size (Xu et al, 2017), evidence for impaired neural function (Xu et al, 2017and altered behavior (Johansen et al, 2017Rowsey et al, 2019); evidence for mitochondrial dysfunction (Johansen and Esbaugh, 2019;Kirby et al, 2019;Xu et al, 2017Xu et al, , 2019; altered control of embryonic buoyancy (Pasparakis et al, 2017); impaired cholesterol biosynthesis (McGruer et al, 2019); impaired immune function (Bayha et al, 2017;Jones et al, 2017;Rodgers et al, 2018); and impaired hypothalamus-pituitaryinterrenal axis function (Reddam et al, 2017).…”

Effects of pollution on marine organisms

“…Mauduit et al (2019) investigated the short‐term response and long‐term recovery of year‐old Dicentrarchus Labrax (European sea bass) after 48‐hr static exposure to various concentrations of chemically (Finasol OSR 52) dispersed Arabian Light Crude oil. The group measured hypoxia tolerance and temperature susceptibility of fish 1 month before, and 1 and 11 months after exposure.…”