Prospects for Gulf of Mexico Environmental Recovery and Restoration

Wiesenburg, Denis A.; Shipp, Bob; Fodrie, Joel; Powers, Sean P.; Lartigue, Julien; Darnell, Kelly M.; Baustian, Melissa M.; Ngo, C. K.; Valentine, John F.

doi:10.5670/oceanog.2021.124

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Turner, 2020). While all of the laboratory studies summarized above have implications for non-model populations in the wild, quantifying the effects at population and ecosystem levels (e.g., Wiesenburg et al, 2021, in this issue) requires that a sufficient proportion of the population be exposed to oil and that this exposure can be detected despite the intermittent and localized nature of field-based sampling. Given that oil concentrations during DWH were not uniform over the extensive footprint of the spill, nor consistent in time (Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees, 2016), it is a particular sampling challenge to document the consequences of the spill to population outcomes.…”

Section: Evolving Perspectives From Dwh-related Research On the Measurement And Assessment Of Ecotoxicological Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Petroleum, Petroleum Components, and Dispersants on Organisms and Populations

Murawski

Grosell

Smith

et al. 2021

Oceanog

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Following the Deepwater Horizon blowout, oil, degraded oil, oil mixed with dispersants, and management responses to the spill affected a variety of Gulf of Mexico organisms. This review provides examples of various documented impacts, common patterns, and trends across organisms and/or their environments, and discusses future implications as well as directions for future research. Organism effects are generally characterized as lethal and sublethal. Sublethal can be short term, long term, or permanent and multigenerational. We present individual examples of effects on behavioral response, olfaction, vision, cardiac function, and gene shift, based on research done in laboratories, mesocosm settings, and the field. Future research should emphasize collection and analysis of routine toxicological baselines and examine how and if molecular impacts cascade up to populations. This research will require development of rapid molecular tools and testing procedures to determine exposure compared to field-relevant exposure levels and to be able to extrapolate laboratory results to the field, especially given the mosaic of differing contaminant concentrations (below, at, or exceeding critical concentrations that result in lethal or sublethal effects) occurring in the environment. Recent chemical studies have identified a detectable suite of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites for which there are no toxicity data; further research is needed to determine their impacts on food webs.

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Section: Evolving Perspectives From Dwh-related Research On the Measurement And Assessment Of Ecotoxicological Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Petroleum, Petroleum Components, and Dispersants on Organisms and Populations

Murawski

Grosell

Smith

et al. 2021

Oceanog

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show abstract

“…Coastal habitats are environmentally and economically critical for the region (Mendelssohn et al, 2012;Wiesenburg et al, 2021), yet the impact of the DWH spill on planktonic microbial communities in coastal waters was not studied nearly as extensively as coastal sediments (Kostka et al, 2011;Bik et al, 2012;King et al, 2015;Huettel et al, 2018) and offshore environments (Joye et al, 2014). It has been hypothesized that natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico "pre-primed" microbial communities for oil degradation (Atlas and Hazen, 2011;Hazen et al, 2016;Liu et al, 2017), but the toxic effects of these seeps are spatially limited as opposed to a massive spill.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal variability of microbial response to crude oil exposure in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Brock

Richardson²,

Ederington-Hagy³

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Oil spills are common occurrences in the United States and can result in extensive ecological damage. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest accidental spill recorded. Many studies were performed in deep water habitats to understand the microbial response to the released crude oil. However, much less is known about how planktonic coastal communities respond to oil spills and whether that response might vary over the course of the year. Understanding this temporal variability would lend additional insight into how coastal Florida habitats may have responded to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. To assess this, the temporal response of planktonic coastal microbial communities to acute crude oil exposure was examined from September 2015 to September 2016 using seawater samples collected from Pensacola Beach, Florida, at 2-week intervals. A standard oil exposure protocol was performed using water accommodated fractions made from MC252 surrogate oil under photo-oxidizing conditions. Dose response curves for bacterial production and primary production were constructed from 3H-leucine incorporation and 14C-bicarbonate fixation, respectively. To assess drivers of temporal patterns in inhibition, a suite of biological and environmental parameters was measured including bacterial counts, chlorophyll a, temperature, salinity, and nutrients. Additionally, 16S rRNA sequencing was performed on unamended seawater to determine if temporal variation in the in situ bacterial community contributed to differences in inhibition. We observed that there is temporal variation in the inhibition of primary and bacterial production due to acute crude oil exposure. We also identified significant relationships of inhibition with environmental and biological parameters that quantitatively demonstrated that exposure to water-soluble crude oil constituents was most detrimental to planktonic microbial communities when temperature was high, when there were low inputs of total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and when there was low bacterial diversity or low phytoplankton biomass.

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Oil Spill Response: Existing Technologies, Prospects and Perspectives

Jayarathna,

Rajapaksha,

Samarasekara

et al. 2024

CleanMat

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The growth of the economy and technological advancement has led to an increased demand for energy and the transportation of raw materials for the production of fuels, chemicals, and petroleum products. However, this increased activity has also resulted in an elevated risk of oil‐related disasters, which can have devastating consequences for the environment and local communities. More than 1700 oil spills have occurred, including severe spills such as the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, which released 134 million gallons. However, technological developments and restrictions have resulted in a significant reduction in spills. Oil spills happened in aquatic and terrestrial environments providing numerous impacts on wildlife and public health. Existing literature may have limited scope or depth; therefore, this review addresses the literature gap by discussing the strengths and limitations of current and emerging technologies for detecting, cleaning, and restoring oil‐contaminated marine and soil sites. Booms, skimmers, chemical agents (dispersants), and in situ burning are generally used for oil spill remediation. Other than conventional methods, numerous novel approaches including adsorbents (e.g., aerogels, carbon nanotubes, and other sorbents) and modified materials have been developed. For detection purposes, collaboration remote sensing and artificial intelligence are used as new emerging technologies. Modified oil adsorbents such as aerogels, sponges, and carbon nanotubes demonstrated high sorption capacity (> 100 g/g) for oil removal. Despite the challenges such as transport, high production cost, and toxicity, these emerging technologies have the potential to improve the effectiveness of oil spill remediation in the future. The materials with hybrid properties should be developed and more real‐scale tests should be tested to mitigate limitations in practical scenarios of developing novel sorbent modifications like nanoparticles and aerogels.

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Prospects for Gulf of Mexico Environmental Recovery and Restoration

Cited by 8 publications

References 30 publications

Impacts of Petroleum, Petroleum Components, and Dispersants on Organisms and Populations

Impacts of Petroleum, Petroleum Components, and Dispersants on Organisms and Populations

Temporal variability of microbial response to crude oil exposure in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Oil Spill Response: Existing Technologies, Prospects and Perspectives

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