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

在过去 20 年的墨西哥湾深处工作中，我们已经建立了一个大型数据库，其中包含 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发育的自然地点。由于深水地平线钻井平台持续漏油，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，对这些地点的一部分进行走访、成像和采样，将及时提供有关对底栖动物群的任何严重影响的信息，并提供表明石油/分散剂混合物正在深度沿密度梯度扩散的地面实况数据。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的珊瑚和珊瑚/管虫群落的镶嵌物。 MMS 租赁区块 VK 826 中的一个地点和 MC 751 中的另一个地点被确定为高优先地点，拥有现存的马赛克、优秀的现有大型动物样本集，并且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 7 英里以内。该地点拥有典型的贻贝和管虫渗流群落。如果正在进行的羽流建模和地面实况工作表明墨西哥湾的其他重要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，我们将对硬地巨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群以进行一系列分析。这些分析将包括碳氢化合物负荷分析（组织多环芳烃）、评估 DNA 损伤的彗星分析、珊瑚粘液中细菌的磷脂脂肪酸生物标志物分析，以及在实验室条件下用活 Lophelia pertusa 进行生长研究的实验。 更广泛的影响 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（对生命的毒性可能比石油本身更大），这些物质是在超过进入深海1500m。这场灾难的规模使之前的任何一次石油泄漏都相形见绌，而这些物质的羽流将如何在深海中移动以及它们对底栖生物的影响仍然几乎完全未知。因此，迫切需要评估对深海巨型动物群落的影响并尽快传达这些结果。

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.