(see above photo)
"So many things feed on larvae, that's the disturbing part," says Darryl Felder of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. But Felder and others say it's too soon to predict what the larger effects on the ecosystem might be.
Scientists have been looking for changes in abundance of tiny crab larvae as they swim along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
One team, led by population ecologist Caroline Taylor of Tulane University in New Orleans, first found droplets while collecting blue crab larvae off Grand Isle, Louisiana. "We didn't expect to find anything like this inside them," Taylor says.
Subsequent surveys by Taylor's team have turned up droplets in larvae in several genera of crabs in sites including Pensacola, Florida, and Galveston, Texas. In some places, up to 100% of larvae contain these droplets.
Experts warn the effect on fisheries could last “years, probably not a matter of months” and affect many species.
Droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla.
"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways, for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."Perry also said the oil found in the crab larvae appears to be trapped between the hard outer shell and the inner skin. Perry said, “Shrimp, crab and oysters have a tough time with hydrocarbon metabolism.” She said fish that eat these smaller species can metabolize the oil, but their bodies also accumulate it with continued exposure and they can suffer reproductive problems “added to a long list of other problems.”
The general feeling about all this is how it has changed everybody’s life.
As someone was quoted, "it’s just overwhelming. I think a hurricane is easy compared to this."
Here's a sample of what's happening:
