Status of intertidal infaunal communities following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska

• Published in: Marine pollution bulletin Vol. 84; no. 1-2; pp. 56 - 69
• Main Authors: Fukuyama, Allan K., Shigenaka, Gary, Coats, Douglas A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 15.07.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Alaska; Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Convergence; Ecosystem; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Exxon Valdez; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Infauna; Leukoma (Protothaca) staminea; Marine; Marine and brackish environment; Parallelism; Petroleum - analysis; Petroleum Pollution - analysis; Population Dynamics; Protothaca staminea; Recolonization; Sea water ecosystems; Synecology; Alaska; United States; North America; America; INE, USA, Alaska, Alaska Gulf, Prince William Sound; Parallelism; Recolonization; Exxon Valdez; Leukoma (Protothaca) staminea; Convergence; Infauna; Oil spill; Marine environment; Status; Intertidal zone; Fauna; Community
• ISSN: 0025-326X; 1879-3363
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.05.043

•The Exxon Valdez oil spill and cleanup initially decreased infaunal abundances.•Most impacted infaunal groups exhibited a recruitment event 1–2years post-spill.•Use of statistical method (parallelism) integrated variability in site conditions.•Recovery defined by parallelism well underway at most impacted sites after 1992.•Return of grain size structure may be precursor to infaunal community recovery. Intertidal infaunal communities were sampled in Prince William Sound, Alaska from 1990–2000 to evaluate impacts and recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Initial findings suggested that the spill and cleanup depressed abundances of all taxonomic groups. By 1992, abundances of major taxonomic categories at disturbed sites had either converged or paralleled populations at Unoiled sites. Abundances of littleneck clams, Leukoma (Protothaca) staminea, slowly increased at Treated sites and converged with Unoiled sites by 2000. Infaunal population differences positively correlated with fine-grained sediments at Treated sites. We believe that sediment fines removal during cleanup, and subsequent slow natural replenishment, impeded the return of the environment to pre-spill conditions. This suggests physical recovery of spill-affected beaches is an important precursor to biological recovery.