28 #ocean #biodiversity #oil #fossil fuel
#climate change
On
the seafloor of Gulf of Mexico rests more than 2,000 historic shipwrecks
spanning 500 years of history, serving as artificial reefs and hotspots of
biodiversity by providing hard substrate, something rare in deep ocean regions.
The impact
of 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on those building blocks of ocean life
associated microbiomes however is rarely understood.
A recent publication on
Scientific Reports is the first to address such impact, and found significantly
reduced biodiversity at seven historic shipwrecks which were exposed to
deposited oil relative to unimpacted sites. It indicates that the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may have had a lasting impact upon even
the smallest organisms in the Gulf of Mexico. It is amid warnings from the
authors that the oceans around America are also under fresh assault as a result
of environmental policies under Donald Trump.
Please refer to the
original publication on Scientific Reports
and the news report on the Guardian for
more details.
(Hamdan et.al. (2018)
The impact of the Deepwater Horizon blowout on historic shipwreck-associated
sediment microbiomes in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 9057)