Abstract

Gulf of Mexico (GOM) ecosystems are interconnected by numerous physical and biological processes. After the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) disaster, these ecological processes facilitated dispersal of oil-spill toxicants or were damaged and broken. A considerable portion of post-DWH research focused on higher levels of biological organization (i.e., populations, communities, and ecosystems) spanning at least four environments (onshore, coastal, open ocean, and deep benthos). Damage wrought by the oil spill and mitigation efforts varied considerably across ecosystems. Whereas all systems show prolonged impacts because of cascading effects that impacted functional connections within and between communities, deep-sea and mesopelagic environments were particularly hard hit and have shown less resilience than shallow environments. In some environments, such as marshes or the deep-sea benthos, products from the spill are still biologically accessible. Some shallow ecosystems show signs of recovery, and populations of some species show resilience; however, a return to a “pre-spill” state is questionable. Importantly, habitats in which large amounts of energy flow through the ecosystem (marshes, coastal regions) recovered more quickly than low energy habitats (deep-sea benthos). Functional interactions between Gulf of Mexico systems are more complex and widespread than generally recognized. Moreover, ecosystems in the Gulf are subject to multiple stressors that can combine to impart greater, and less predictable, impacts. To help mitigate the effects of future insults, we identified four salient areas of research that should be addressed for each of the major environments within the GOM: establishing monitoring systems; quantifying coupling between GOM ecosystems; developing criteria for assessing the “vulnerability” and “resilience” of species, communities, and ecosystems; and developing holistic predictive modeling.

Highlights

  • Organisms and populations depend on each other

  • The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was unprecedented in the vastness of the area impacted (149,000 km2), duration (87 days), and amounts of pollutants added to the environment

  • VARIABLE TIMESCALES OF IMPACTS Consistent with previous research on oil spills (e.g., Peterson et al, 2003; Lincoln et al, 2020), available evidence suggests that impacts of the DWH spill on Gulf of Mexico biodiversity and ecosystem functions will last for many decades

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Summary

Introduction

Organisms and populations depend on each other. When one species is harmed or perturbed, other species can be affected, and connections that bind species together to make functional ecosystems can be stressed or broken. Spill impacted the patterns and trends of perturbations, responses, and recoveries in the multiple ecosystems that comprise the Gulf of Mexico region.

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