Abstract Detail

Strategies for healing our coast lines: Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, erosion and urban degradation: progress for the North American future marine macro-plants

Teas, Howard [1], Thorhaug, Anitra [2], Coons, Janice [3].

Healing Mangrove Biodiversity: oil spills, dispersants and mangrove restoration.

One of the highest marine shoreline biodiversities and productivities, and also a source of very high sequestered carbon in the world's marine and estuarine tropics and subtropics is from mangroves, a group of higher plants from a variety of evolutionary pathways adapted to high salt tolerance, some of which grow directly in the intertidal marine zone, others of which grow upland in areas of salt intrusion and spray. The problem of mangrove tolerance to a variety of anthropogenic substances has been studied intensively. Oil and dispersed oil particularly has been tested on seedlings and adults resulting in the fact that a series of dispersants can alleviate massive mortality of mangroves if placed onto fresh oil sheen prior to petroleum entering a mangrove forest. If the oil sheen reaches the mangroves on low tidal cycle, then permeates to the roots, the mortality is far higher. The Panama spill and Ixtoc in the Greater Caribbean Sea are examples of this in the field as are other spill results also indicating mortality when sediments are permeated by oil. Restoration of mangroves has been carried out extensively in the Gulf of México and Caribbean including South Florida by Teas and others. The restoration on a variety of impacted sites including oiled sediments has also been carried out. The dispersed oil and dispersant alone data from our testing of mangroves vs. dispersed oil, as well as Greater Caribbean Basin spills and their restoration in a variety of anthropogenic situations will be discussed.

Broader Impacts:

1 - University of Miami, Department of Biology , Coral Gables, Fl , 33133, USA
2 - Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, 359 Prospect St., New Haven , Ct. , 06901, USA
3 - Eastern Illinois Universtiy, Biological Sciences, 600 Lincoln Ave, Charleston, IL, 61920, USA

Keywords:
biodiversity
mangrove
dispersants
oil spill
dispersant response
oil response
Panama
gulf of Mexico
Ixtoc
mangrove  restoration.

Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY13
Location: Lindell D/Chase Park Plaza
Date: Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
Time: 2:30 PM
Number: SY13002
Abstract ID:404