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Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem

Major oil spills can have long-term impacts since oil pollution does not only result in acute mortality of marine organisms, but also affects productivity levels, predator-prey dynamics, and damages habitats that support marine communities. However, despite the conservation implications of oil accid...

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Autores principales: Moreno, Rocío, Jover, Lluís, Diez, Carmen, Sardà, Francesc, Sanpera, Carola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24130877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077360
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author Moreno, Rocío
Jover, Lluís
Diez, Carmen
Sardà, Francesc
Sanpera, Carola
author_facet Moreno, Rocío
Jover, Lluís
Diez, Carmen
Sardà, Francesc
Sanpera, Carola
author_sort Moreno, Rocío
collection PubMed
description Major oil spills can have long-term impacts since oil pollution does not only result in acute mortality of marine organisms, but also affects productivity levels, predator-prey dynamics, and damages habitats that support marine communities. However, despite the conservation implications of oil accidents, the monitoring and assessment of its lasting impacts still remains a difficult and daunting task. Here, we used European shags to evaluate the overall, lasting effects of the Prestige oil spill (2002) on the affected marine ecosystem. Using δ (15)N and Hg analysis, we trace temporal changes in feeding ecology potentially related to alterations of the food web due to the spill. Using climatic and oceanic data, we also investigate the influence of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, the sea surface temperature (SST) and the chlorophyll a (Chl a) on the observed changes. Analysis of δ (15)N and Hg concentrations revealed that after the Prestige oil spill, shag chicks abruptly switched their trophic level from a diet based on a high percentage of demersal-benthic fish to a higher proportion of pelagic/semi-pelagic species. There was no evidence that Chl a, SST and NAO reflected any particular changes or severity in environmental conditions for any year or season that may explain the sudden change observed in trophic level. Thus, this study highlighted an impact on the marine food web for at least three years. Our results provide the best evidence to date of the long-term consequences of the Prestige oil spill. They also show how, regardless of wider oceanographic variability, lasting impacts on predator-prey dynamics can be assessed using biochemical markers. This is particularly useful if larger scale and longer term monitoring of all trophic levels is unfeasible due to limited funding or high ecosystem complexity.
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spelling pubmed-37939482013-10-15 Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem Moreno, Rocío Jover, Lluís Diez, Carmen Sardà, Francesc Sanpera, Carola PLoS One Research Article Major oil spills can have long-term impacts since oil pollution does not only result in acute mortality of marine organisms, but also affects productivity levels, predator-prey dynamics, and damages habitats that support marine communities. However, despite the conservation implications of oil accidents, the monitoring and assessment of its lasting impacts still remains a difficult and daunting task. Here, we used European shags to evaluate the overall, lasting effects of the Prestige oil spill (2002) on the affected marine ecosystem. Using δ (15)N and Hg analysis, we trace temporal changes in feeding ecology potentially related to alterations of the food web due to the spill. Using climatic and oceanic data, we also investigate the influence of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, the sea surface temperature (SST) and the chlorophyll a (Chl a) on the observed changes. Analysis of δ (15)N and Hg concentrations revealed that after the Prestige oil spill, shag chicks abruptly switched their trophic level from a diet based on a high percentage of demersal-benthic fish to a higher proportion of pelagic/semi-pelagic species. There was no evidence that Chl a, SST and NAO reflected any particular changes or severity in environmental conditions for any year or season that may explain the sudden change observed in trophic level. Thus, this study highlighted an impact on the marine food web for at least three years. Our results provide the best evidence to date of the long-term consequences of the Prestige oil spill. They also show how, regardless of wider oceanographic variability, lasting impacts on predator-prey dynamics can be assessed using biochemical markers. This is particularly useful if larger scale and longer term monitoring of all trophic levels is unfeasible due to limited funding or high ecosystem complexity. Public Library of Science 2013-10-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3793948/ /pubmed/24130877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077360 Text en © 2013 Moreno et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Moreno, Rocío
Jover, Lluís
Diez, Carmen
Sardà, Francesc
Sanpera, Carola
Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title_full Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title_fullStr Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title_full_unstemmed Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title_short Ten Years after the Prestige Oil Spill: Seabird Trophic Ecology as Indicator of Long-Term Effects on the Coastal Marine Ecosystem
title_sort ten years after the prestige oil spill: seabird trophic ecology as indicator of long-term effects on the coastal marine ecosystem
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24130877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077360
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