How weathering might intensify the toxicity of spilled crude oil in marine environments.

Crude oils are highly complex mixtures containing many toxic compounds for organisms. While their level of toxicity in a marine environment depends on many parameters, one of the main factors is their composition. After oil spills, their compositions are significantly changed, so it changes the toxicity. In this study, different weathering processes such as evaporation, photooxidation, and biodegradation were applied to crude oil to understand how composition changed over time and how this affects its toxicity on phytoplankton. In laboratory settings, three distinct water-accommodated fraction samples of crude oil were prepared, unweathered, evaporated, and weathered and were exposed to phytoplankton communities at different dilution levels. After 3 days, evaporation reduced the crude oil concentration by 47%, and the concentration of the crude oil affected by photooxidation, biodegradation, and evaporation reduced by 81%. This study also showed that even though the weathering reduced the overall amount of crude oil substantially, its toxicity increased significantly. In the microcosm experiments, 7-day EC50 values of the unweathered oil, the evaporated oil and the weathered oil were 49.07, 21.09, and 7.16 µg/L, respectively. Different processes altered the crude oil composition, and weathered crude oil ended up with a higher fraction of high molecular weight (HMW) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A promising relation between the increasing toxicity and HMW PAH fraction indicates that increasing the fraction of HMW PAHs might be one of the main reasons for the weathering process to cause higher crude oil toxicity. These results could be used as a diagnostic tool to estimate the extent of weathering and toxicity of crude oil after spills.

Induction of reactive oxygen species in marine phytoplankton under crude oil exposure.

Exposure of phytoplankton to the water-accommodated fraction of crude oil can elicit a number of stress responses, but the mechanisms that drive these responses are unclear. South Louisiana crude oil was selected to investigate its effects on population growth, chlorophyll a (Chl a) content, antioxidative defense, and lipid peroxidation, for the marine diatom, Ditylum brightwellii, and the dinoflagellate, Heterocapsa triquetra, in laboratory-based microcosm experiments. The transcript levels of several possible stress-responsive genes in D. brightwellii were also measured. The microalgae were exposed to crude oil for up to 96 h, and Chl a content, superoxide dismutase (SOD), the glutathione pool (GSH and GSSG), and lipid peroxidation content were analyzed. The cell growth of both phytoplankton species was inhibited with increasing crude oil concentrations. Crude oil exposure did not affect Chl a content significantly in cells. SOD activities showed similar responses in both species, being enhanced at 4- and 8-mg/L crude oil exposure. Only H. triquetra demonstrated enhanced activity in GSSG pool and lipid peroxidation at 8-mg/L crude oil exposure, suggesting that phytoplankton species have distinct physiological responses and tolerance levels to crude oil exposure. This study indicated the activation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in phytoplankton under crude oil exposure; however, the progressive damage in cells is still unknown. Thus, ROS-related damage in nucleic acid, lipids, proteins, and DNA, due to crude oil exposure could be a worthwhile subject of study to better understand crude oil toxicity at the base of the food web.

Responses of sympatric Karenia brevis, Prorocentrum minimum, and Heterosigma akashiwo to the exposure of crude oil.

Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on phytoplankton, particularly, the tolerability and changes to the toxin profiles of harmful toxic algal species remain unknown. The degree to which oil-affected sympatric Karenia brevis, Prorocentrum minimum, and Heterosigma akashiwo, all of which are ecologically important species in the Gulf of Mexico, was investigated. Comparison of their tolerability to that of non-toxic species showed that the toxin-production potential of harmful species does not provide a selective advantage. Investigated toxin profiles for K. brevis and P. minimum demonstrated an increase in toxin productivity at the lowest crude oil concentration (0.66 mg L(-1)) tested in this study. Higher crude oil concentrations led to significant growth inhibition and a decrease in toxin production. Findings from this study could assist in the assessment of shellfish bed closures due to high risk of increased toxin potential of these phytoplankton species, especially during times of stressed conditions.

Relative phytoplankton growth responses to physically and chemically dispersed South Louisiana sweet crude oil.

We conducted controlled laboratory exposure experiments to assess the toxic effects of water-accommodated fractions (WAFs) of South Louisiana sweet crude oil on five phytoplankton species isolated from the Gulf of Mexico. Experiments were conducted with individual and combinations of the five phytoplankton species to determine growth inhibitions to eight total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) equivalent concentrations ranging from 461 to 7,205 ppb. The composition and concentration of crude oil were altered by physical and chemical processes and used to help evaluate crude oil toxicity. The impact of crude oil exposure on phytoplankton growth varied with the concentration of crude oil, species of microalgae, and their community composition. At a concentration of TPH < 1,200 ppb, dinoflagellate species showed significantly better tolerance, while diatom species showed a higher tolerance to crude oil at higher concentrations of TPH. For both groups, the larger species were more tolerant to crude oil than smaller ones. The toxicity potential of crude oil seems to be strongly influenced by the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The addition of the dispersant, Corexit® EC9500A, increased the amount of crude oil up to 50-fold in the water column, while the physical enhancement (vigorous mixing of water column) did not significantly increase the amount of TPH concentration in the water column. The species response to crude oil was also examined in the five-species community. Each phytoplankton species showed considerably less tolerance to crude oil in the five-species community compared to their individual responses. This study provides baseline information about individual phytoplankton responses to crude oil and dispersed crude oil for subsequent research efforts seeking to understand the impacts of oil on the phytoplankton in the bigger picture.

Distinct responses of Gulf of Mexico phytoplankton communities to crude oil and the dispersant corexit(®) Ec9500A under different nutrient regimes.

This study examines the potential effects of exposure to South Louisiana sweet crude oil (LSC), Corexit(®) EC9500A, and dispersed oil on enclosed phytoplankton communities under different nutrient regimes. Three distinct microcosm experiments were conducted for 10 days to assess changes to the structure of natural communities from the Gulf of Mexico as quantified by temporal changes in the biomasses of different phytoplankton groups. Concentration of NO3, Si and PO4 were 0.83, 0.99 and 0.09 µM for the unenriched treatments and 14.07, 13.01 and 0.94 µM for the enriched treatments, respectively. Overall, the contaminants LSC and Corexit(®) EC9500A led to a decrease in the number of sensitive species and an increase in more resistant species. Phytoplankton communities showed more sensitivity to LSC under nutrient-limited conditions. The addition of nutrients to initially nutrient-limited treatments lessened the inhibitory effect of LSC in the short term. Centric diatoms benefited most from this enrichment, but pennate diatoms demonstrated considerably greater tolerance to crude oil at low crude oil concentrations in nutrient-enriched treatments. Dinoflagellates showed relatively higher tolerance in nutrient-limited treatments and high crude oil concentrations. Corexit(®) EC9500A inputs significantly increased the toxicity of crude oil. Corexit(®) EC9500A alone had a highly inhibitory effect at 63 ppm on phytoplankton communities. This study highlights the fact that different nutrient regimes play a major role in determining the shifts of the phytoplankton community in response to exposure to different concentrations of crude oil and dispersant. Determination of the functional equivalence of shifted phytoplankton groups could complement our research and allow for more pertinent extrapolation to real world conditions.

Can crude oil toxicity on phytoplankton be predicted based on toxicity data on benzo(a)pyrene and naphthalene?

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are major components of crude oil, are responsible in large part for the toxicity of crude oil to phytoplankton. This study addressed the following question. Can reliable predictions of the aquatic toxicity of crude oil, a multi-component mixture, be described from toxicity data on individual PAH compounds? Naphthalene, the most abundant PAH compound, and benzo(a)pyrene, a highly toxic PAH compound, were selected as model compounds to quantify toxicity of crude oil on two phytoplankton species, Ditylum brightwellii and Heterocapsa triquetra, by analyzing the effects of different concentrations of these PAHs on growth rate. EC50 values suggested that the diatom D. brightwellii was more vulnerable to both toxicants than the dinoflagellate H. triquetra. However, a previous study, which investigated the impact of crude oil on the same two species, had opposite results. The differences in response from these phytoplankton species to naphthalene and benzo(a)pyrene toxicity compared to their response to crude oil suggest that they may not be solely used as surrogates to assess crude oil toxicity on phytoplankton.