An extensive study of the long-term environmental effects of the 2002 Prestige oil spill has been undertaken by a group from The University of the Basque Country, headed by Miren Cajaraville and Ionan Marigomez. These HOT articles describe a series of biomarkers for monitoring the response of mussel populations to the disaster off the northern coast of Spain.
Mussels are often used to assess the impact of various alterations in marine ecosystems, from climate change to chronic pollution. Here, changes in lysomal response and histopathology of digestive gland tissues were analysed to build a picture of the long-term effects of the oil spill. These, combined with others, form a battery of biomarkers which the group use to infer the health of the overall ecosystem.
The group found severe disruption of biological processes in the mussel populations studied, but promisingly many of the mussel populations returned to a state of relatively good health within a few years of the disaster. It is hoped that future studies can use similar batteries of biomarkers to monitor ecological disaster recovery.
You can read the full papers online here – they’re free to access for 4 weeks:
Application of a battery of biomarkers in mussel digestive gland to assess long-term effects of the Prestige oil spill in Galicia and the Bay of Biscay: Lysosomal responses
Larraitz Garmendia, Urtzi Izagirre, Miren P. Cajaraville and Ionan Marigómez
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00409J, Paper
Application of a battery of biomarkers in mussel digestive gland to assess long-term effects of the Prestige oil spill in Galicia and Bay of Biscay: Tissue-level biomarkers and histopathology
Larraitz Garmendia, Manu Soto, Unai Vicario, Yungkul Kim, Miren P Cajaraville and Ionan Marigómez
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00410C, Paper
Also in the same series of work check out the group’s previous paper:
Effects of the fuel oil spilled by the Prestige tanker on reproduction parameters of wild mussel populations
Maren Ortiz-Zarragoitia, Larraitz Garmendia, María Carmen Barbero, Teresa Serrano, Ionan Marigómez and Miren P. Cajaraville
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, 13, 84-94
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00102C, Paper
