Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Data Set Details

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GCE-LTER Data Set Summary

Accession:

MLT-GCEO-1112

Research Theme:

Multi-Disciplinary Study (Other Study)

Contributors:

Brittany DeLoach McCall, Steve Pennings, Huy Vu, Kazik Wieski, Hongyu Guo, Brittany DeLong, Claudia Grimm, Annika Stark, Thomas Decker

Title:

Disturbance and recovery of salt marsh arthropod communities in Louisiana and Mississippi following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract:

Oil spills represent a major environmental threat to coastal wetlands, which provide a variety of critical ecosystem services to humanity. The U.S. Gulf of Mexico is a hub of oil and gas exploration and production with recognized consequences on intertidal habitats, such as the salt marsh. Following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we sampled the marine invertebrate and the terrestrial arthropod community found in stands of Spartina alterniflora, the most abundant plant in coastal salt marshes, in 2010 as oil was washing ashore and a year later in 2011. In 2010, intertidal crabs and terrestrial arthropods (insects and spiders) were suppressed by oil exposure even in seemingly unaffected stands of plants; however, Littoraria snails appeared unaffected. One year later, crab and arthropods appeared to have largely recovered. Our work is the first attempt that we know of assessing vulnerability of the salt marsh arthropod community to oil exposure, and it suggests that arthropods are both quite vulnerable to oil exposure, and quite resilient, able to recover from exposure within a year if host plants remain healthy. BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf Coast presented an opportunity to understand how stress from an oil spill might affect variables that we were measuring in the area. The study was conducted at sites in Louisiana and Mississippi. At each site, a 100m transect was sampled within 5m of the dead zone boundary. Sampling was conducted in August 2010 and August 2011. The number of sites and location of sites differed slightly among years.

DOI:

10.6073/pasta/8da296e41363a8fcb931d44a71264107

Key Words:

abundance, Acridid, arthropods, Cecidomyiidae, Chaetopsis, Chloropidae, Delphacodes, disturbance, Dolichopodidae, ecosystems, fertilization, Foraminifera, Geukensia, insects, invertebrates, irradiance, Ischnodemus, latitude, Littoraria, longitude, marine, Megamealus, Melampus, nematodes, Oligochaetes, organic content, plants, pollution, Polychaetes, Prokelisia, salinity, sediments, Tettigoniid, Trigonotylus, Tytthus

LTER Core Area:

Disturbance Patterns

Research Themes:

Multi-Disciplinary Study, Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology, Organic Matter/Decomposition, Plant Ecology, Population Ecology, Terrestrial Insect Ecology

Study Period:

01-Aug-2010 to 30-Aug-2011

Study Sites:

SE_Coast -- Southeastern USA Coast, USA

» Download Geographic Coverage: Google Earth

Species References:

Delphacodes penedetecta, Geukensia demissa, Littoraria irrorata, Melampus bidentatus, Prokelisia marginata, Spartina alterniflora, Trigonotylus uhleri, Tytthus vagus

Data References:

MLT-GCET-1106a (Prior survey (thesis study)), MLT-GCET-1106b (Prior experimental plot study (thesis study))

Publications:

McCall, B.D. and Pennings, S.C. 2012. Disturbance and recovery of salt marsh arthropod communities following BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. PLoS ONE. (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032735)

Zengel, S., Weaver, J., Pennings, S.C., Silliman, B.R., Deis, D., Montague, C.L., Zimmerman, A., Rutherford, N. and Nixon, Z. 2017. Five years of Deepwater Horizon oil spill effects on marsh periwinkles Littoraria irrorata. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 576:135-144. (DOI: 10.3354/meps11827)

Downloads:

Data Table: MLT-GCEO-1112 (Main data table for data set MLT-GCEO-1112, 23 records)

Access: Public (released 01-Jan-2012)

Metadata: Text (ESA FLED), XML (Ecological Metadata Language)

Data Formats: Spreadsheet (CSV) [9.12kb], Text File [7.89kb], MATLAB (GCE Toolbox) [248.05kb], MATLAB (Variables) [263.63kb], Text Report [90.40kb]

Column List:(hide)

Column	Name	Units	Type	Description
1	Location	none	string	Name of the sampling location
2	Latitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic latitude of the sampling location
3	Longitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic longitude of the sampling location
4	Day	D	integer	Calendar day site was sampled
5	Month	M	integer	Calendar month site was sampled
6	Year	YYYY	integer	Calendar year site was sampled
7	Oil_Presence	none	integer	Presence of obvious oil in water and on plants and soil
8	Soil_Organic_Content	percent	floating-point	Soil organic content as determined by loss of dry mass after ignition in a muffle furnace
9	Soil_Water_Content	percent	floating-point	Soil water content as determined by difference between wet weight and dry weight
10	Soil_Salinity	PSU	floating-point	Salinity of pore water
11	Soil_Bitumen	percent	floating-point	Oil content of soil by mass
12	Leaf_Nitrogen	percent	floating-point	nitrogen content of Spartina alterniflora leaf
13	Spartina_Cover	percent	floating-point	percent cover of Spartina in 0.5 x 0.5 m quadrat
14	Dead_Plant_Cover	percent	floating-point	percent cover of dead plant material in 0.5 x 0.5 m quadrat
15	Spartina_Height	cm	floating-point	Height of tallest Spartina alterniflora plant
16	PAR_Above_Canopy	µE/m^2/s	floating-point	PAR reading above plant canopy
17	PAR_Below_Canopy	µE/m^2/s	floating-point	PAR reading at soil level
18	Light_Intercepted	ratio	floating-point	Fraction of light intercepted by the canopy
19	Littoraria_Density	count/m^2	floating-point	Average number of littoraria per square meter
20	Littoraria_Height	mm	floating-point	Average spire height of Littoraria from transect
21	Melampus_Density	count/m^2	floating-point	Average number of Melampus per square meter
22	Black_Snail_Density	count/m^2	floating-point	Average number of black snails per square meter
23	Geukensia_Density	count/m^2	floating-point	Average number of Geukensia per square meter
24	Crab_Burrow_Density	count/m^2	floating-point	Average number of crab burrows per square meter
25	Crab_Burrow_Diameter	cm	floating-point	Average diameter of crab burrows from transect
26	Tettigoniid_Abundance	none	integer	Estimate of tettigoniid abundance
27	Foraminifera_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of Foraminifera in pooled sediment sample
28	Nematode_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of nematodes in pooled sediment sample
29	Polychaete_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of polychaetes in pooled sediment sample
30	Oligochaete_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of oligochaetes in pooled sediment sample
31	Unident_Worm_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of unidents in pooled sediment sample Number of Worms in pooled sediment sample
32	Snail_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of snails in pooled sediment sample
33	Bivalve_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of bivalves in pooled sediment sample
34	Other_Mollusc_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of other molluscs in pooled sediment sample
35	Crab_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of crabs in pooled sediment sample
36	Amphipod_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of amphipods in pooled sediment sample
37	Insect_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of insects in pooled sediment sample
38	Spider_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of spiders in pooled sediment sample
39	Other_Arthropod_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of other arthropods in pooled sediment sample
40	Unidentified_Infauna_Count_Sediment	count	integer	Number of unidentified infauna in pooled sediment sample
41	Trigonotylus_uhleri_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Trigonotylus uhleri in pooled DVac sample
42	Leafhopper_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of leafhoppers in pooled DVac sample
43	Prokelisia_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Prokelisia in pooled DVac sample
44	Delphacodes_penedetecta_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Delphacodes penedetecta in pooled DVac sample
45	Megamealus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Megamealus in pooled DVac sample
46	Immature_Delphacids_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of immature Delphacids in pooled DVac sample
47	Other_Planthopper_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other Planthoppers in pooled DVac sample
48	Ischnodemus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Ischnodemus in pooled DVac sample
49	Tettigonid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tettigonid in pooled DVac sample
50	Acridid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Acridid in pooled DVac sample
51	Thrips_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Thrips in pooled DVac sample
52	Weevil_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of weevils in pooled DVac sample
53	Chaetopsis_Fly_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Chaetopsis fly in pooled DVac sample
54	Chloropidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Chloropidae in pooled DVac sample
55	Cecidomyiidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Cecidomyiidae in pooled DVac sample
56	Dolichopodidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Dolichopodidae in pooled DVac sample
57	Other_Herbivore_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other herbivores in pooled DVac sample
58	Tythus_vagus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tythus vagus in pooled DVac sample
59	Naemia_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Naemia in pooled DVac sample
60	Hogna_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Hogna in pooled DVac sample
61	Pardosa_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Pardosa in pooled DVac sample
62	Marpissa_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Marpissa in pooled DVac sample
63	Other_Salticid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other Salticid in pooled DVac sample
64	Clubionid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Clubionid in pooled DVac sample
65	Tetragnatha_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tetragnatha in pooled DVac sample
66	Grammonota_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Grammonota in pooled DVac sample
67	Other_Spider_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other spiders in pooled DVac sample
68	Other_Predator_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other predators in pooled DVac sample
69	Wasp_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of wasps in pooled DVac sample
70	Collembola_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Collembola in pooled DVac sample
71	Brachycera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Brachycera in pooled DVac sample
72	Nematocera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Nematocera in pooled DVac sample
73	Ant_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of ants in pooled DVac sample
74	Dragonfly_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of dragonflies in pooled DVac sample
75	Cricket_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of crickets in pooled DVac sample
76	Amphipod_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Amphipods in pooled DVac sample
77	Coleoptera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Coleoptera in pooled DVac sample
78	Crab_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of crabs in pooled DVac sample
79	Mite_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of mites in pooled DVac sample
80	Total_Arthropod_Count_DVac	count	integer	Total arthropods in pooled DVac sample

Statistics:

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Citation:

McCall, Brittany DeLoach. 2011. Disturbance and recovery of salt marsh arthropod communities in Louisiana and Mississippi following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Project, University of Georgia, Long Term Ecological Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/8da296e41363a8fcb931d44a71264107

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