The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released a publication that discusses various ways that oil exposure can impact mangroves, which have partially submerged root systems that make them especially sensitive to contaminants. Mangroves are widely distributed along Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea coastlines, and they provide important ecosystem services such as protecting shorelines, improving water quality, and providing shelter to fish and shellfish.
Read Impacts of Oil on Mangroves to learn about four types of impacts that mangroves may experience depending on how oil accumulates along shorelines. Also included are ways to protect mangroves, what history tells us about mangrove recovery, and issues related to restoration of damaged mangroves.
Read these Sea Grant publications related to how oil spills affect coastal areas: Birds of a Feather: Coping with Oil , Oysters and Oil Spills, and Navigating Shifting Sands: Oil on our Beaches.
Read these summaries of studies related to oil spill impacts on marshes:
- Eight-Year Study Quantifies How Oiling is a Continuing Stressor on the Marsh Ecosystem
- Study Reveals Recovery and Loss in Oiled Louisiana Marshes
- Study Estimates Decades-Long Persistence of Harmful Hydrocarbons in Marshes
- Study Links Recovery of Oiled Marsh with Return of Salt Marsh Vegetation
The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team synthesizes peer-reviewed science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast. Sea Grant offers oil-spill related public seminars across the United States.
Information about upcoming Sea Grant science seminars and recently-held events is available here. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.
By Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact maggied@ngi.msstate.edu with questions or comments.
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GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.
© Copyright 2010- 2020 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).