RAPID: Collaborative Research: Acute response of benthic hardbottom communities to oil exposure in the deep Gulf of Mexico

在过去20年的墨西哥湾深海工作中，我们建立了一个大型数据库，其中包括40多个具有化学合成群落的地点和14个具有广泛冷水珊瑚开发的自然地点。由于深水地平线钻井平台持续的石油泄漏，其中一些地点很可能暴露在高浓度的碳氢化合物和分散剂中。在不久的将来，在这些地点中的一个子集进行访问、成像和采样将及时提供对底栖动物的任何严重影响的信息，并提供表明石油/分散剂混合物正沿着密度梯度在深处传播的地面真实数据。我们建议重新访问我们正在进行研究的地点，包括暴露前的组织和活珊瑚样本，以及标记良好和导航良好的珊瑚和珊瑚/管虫群落的马赛克。MMS租赁区块VK 826的一个地点和MC 751的另一个地点被确定为具有现存马赛克、极好的先前存在的大型动物样本集的高优先级地点，目前正在使用时间序列沉积物陷阱进行监测。第三个高优先级地点位于MMS租赁区块MC 294，距离泄漏地点不到7英里。这个地点是典型的贻贝和管虫渗漏群落的港湾。如果正在进行的羽流模型和地面真实工作表明墨西哥湾还有其他重要的区域或深度可供研究，则可以访问许多其他地点。在访问的每个地点，我们将对硬地大型动物群落进行高分辨率成像，以便与去年收集的类似图像进行比较，并收集一系列大型动物集合，以便进行一系列分析。这些分析将包括碳氢化合物负荷(组织多环芳烃)的分析，评估DNA损伤的彗星试验，分析珊瑚粘液中细菌的磷脂脂肪酸生物标记物，以及在实验室条件下对活的Pertusa进行生长研究的实验。广泛影响美国历史上第一次，我们正在处理石油和试验分散剂的大规模泄漏和扩散(可能比石油本身对生命的毒性更大)，它们被直接注入1500米以上的深海。这场灾难的规模令之前的任何一次漏油事件相形见绌，这些物质的羽流将如何在深海中流动，以及它们将对海底生物产生什么影响，几乎仍然是完全未知的。因此，迫切需要评估对深海大型动物群落的影响，并尽快通报这些结果。

Over the past 20 years of work in the deep Gulf of Mexico we have assembled a large database on over 40 sites with chemosynthetic communities and 14 natural sites with extensive cold-water coral development. As a result of the ongoing oil leak at the Deep Water Horizon rig, some of these sites are very likely to be exposed to high concentrations of hydrocarbons and dispersant. Visitation, imaging, and sampling in the very near future at a subset of these sites will provide timely information on any acute impacts on benthic fauna, as well as provide ground-truthing of data suggesting that the oil/dispersant mixture is spreading along density gradients at depth.We propose to revisit sites where we have ongoing studies, including pre-exposure tissue and live coral samples, and well-marked and navigated mosaics of coral and coral/tubeworm communities. A site in MMS lease block VK 826 and another in MC 751 are identified as high-priority sites with extant mosaics, excellent pre-existing macrofauna sample sets, and are currently monitored with time series sediment traps. A third high-priority site is in MMS lease Block MC 294, within 7 miles of the leak site. This site harbors a typical seep community of mussels and tubeworms. Numerous others could be visited if ongoing plume modeling and ground-truthing work suggests other important areas or depths in the Gulf of Mexico for study.At each site visited, we will conduct high resolution imaging of the hard ground megafaunal communities for comparisons to similar imagery collected last year and make a series of macrofauna collections for a suite of analyses. These analyses will include analysis of hydrocarbon load (tissue PAHs), Comet assays to assess DNA damage, analysis of phospholipids fatty acid biomarkers from bacteria in coral mucous, and also experiments with living Lophelia pertusa for growth studies under laboratory conditions.Broader ImpactsFor the first time in US history, we are dealing with a massive leakage and spread of oil and trial dispersants (potentially much more toxic to life than the oil itself), which have been directly injected at over 1500m into the deep sea. The scale of this disaster dwarfs any previous oil spills and how plumes of these substances will travel in the deep sea and what their effects on the benthos will be is still almost completely unknown. As a result, there is a critical need to assess the impact on deep-sea megafauna communities and communicate those results as soon as possible.