The Tallahassee Democrat demonstrates how the Deepwater Horizon disaster is affecting what we can still learn about sea life:
ST. TERESA — Thunder clattered and purple clouds gathered over the Florida State University Coastal & Marine Laboratory on Friday afternoon as David Kimbro ran around, adjusting bins holding research specimens so they could weather the oncoming storm.
“Just getting them ready to be hit by lightning,” he said.
Gallows humor is a good response to the oncoming Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which threatens to decimate the oyster beds that Kimbro and his colleagues study. Kimbro is principal investigator on a new three-year, $860,000 National Science Foundation-funded grant to study oyster reefs from Florida to Maine.
…
Scientists estimate that nearly 90 percent of the world’s oyster reefs have been destroyed due to harvesting or dredging, making the remaining 10 percent extremely valuable for study even before they were threatened by the oncoming oil spill.
“We’re trying to learn how oyster reefs tick, collecting data on the entire environment,” Kimbro said. “We’re hoping that this work can be used to guide restoration efforts.”
It’s not just the oysters in the oil. It’s what we were still figuring out about oysters everywhere. And the things that live on and around them. Everything is connected.
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