Pacific herring

Comment on “Multitissue Molecular, Genomic, and Developmental Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Resident Gulf Killifish (Fundulus grandis)”

“…Concerning salmon and the EVOS, recent reviews , reveal a course of events that argues against premature predictions of population-level effects. For example, initial reporting of mortality of salmon eggs from oil exposure in the field was found to be confounded by sampling artifacts in subsequent Trustee and Exxon-sponsored research. ,, Despite initial concerns, the outcome of years of research is that no EVOS effects on salmon were evident at the population level. , For herring and EVOS, studies by Trustee-sponsored scientists and Exxon-sponsored scientists both observed localized effects on eggs and larvae exposed to oil during the spill year (1989), both did not observe these effects the next year (1990), and both did not observe effects at the population level. ,− Several sets of data indicate the lack of population-level effects from the EVOS on herring: High herring biomasses in 1990 and 1991, no change in age composition, postspill recruitment patterns for which abundance and timing matched expectation, and lack of correlation between oil exposure and biomass levels. Two independent age structured assessment (ASA) models of the Prince William Sound (PWS) herring population did not find elevated adult mortality in the spill years. , Further, one ASA model analysis used covariates to find that natural and anthropogenic factors were significant in the population dynamics of PWS herring while oil exposure was not.…”