July 2010 – Dr. Wes Tunnell
July 2010 – Dr. Wes Tunnell, USNC vice-chair and Associate Director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi.
Melissa Brodeur: How is the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
Wes Tunnell: All of the HRI Endowed Chairs have responded to agencies, organizations, colleagues, and the media in their respective areas of expertise, from policy and law, socioeconomics, fisheries, biodiversity, mapping, and ecosystem studies. Although we did not hire the endowed chairs knowing about their expertise in the oil and gas industry and related to spills, their backgrounds and experience have been very helpful to many in an advisory capacity. Some will eventually become involved directly in research regarding the spill.
MB: Given the extent of the oil slicks and reports of underwater plumes, do you have any guess as to how long it could take the Gulf of Mexico to fully recover?
WT: The known impacts are those that have happened in many other spills over the past several decades. The fine grain, sandy beaches of the Texas coast rank three on the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) scale of 1-10, with one being least impacted and easiest to clean up and 10 being the most impacted and most difficult to clean up. Texas beach intertidal and shallow subtidal populations recovered within 2-3 years to pre-spill conditions. Salt marshes rank 10 on the ESI scale, so those of the Mississippi Delta will be greatly impacted and take much longer to recover, especially since you cannot clean them up once the oil reaches them. If you do try to clean them up, you will cause the oil to be pushed further down into the sediments and extend the recovery time even further. The unknown impacts are the ones that concern scientists the most with this current spill. The impact from the use of dispersants at great depth and the formation of the underwater plumes are unknown factors that the science community has not dealt with before. We do not know what the impacts will be nor how long they will last.
MB: You recently led a massive international effort to document the marine life in the Gulf of Mexico (reported in the book Gulf of Mexico Origin, Waters, and Biota, Volume I: Biodiversity). What role, if any, do you think that data and research can play in the oil spill disaster?
WT: Since the publication of that book, we have converted the information into a database (thanks to the Sloan Foundation and NOAA), and we are currently making some mapping tools to go with that. We were able to provide the scientific community with the known biodiversity of 8332 species from the northeast octant of the Gulf of Mexico where the spill is located. That number was further broken down by depth polygons to give more detail. Once the system is completed, it should be an excellent tool for management and scientific studies of the biodiversity of the Gulf.
MB: What function do you think the Census of Marine Life could perform in terms of the affected marine life?
WT: Knowledge gained by several projects can serve as a baseline of information before the spill (called pre-spill), so sampling protocols could be repeated to determine impacts or changes. A good example is the project by Gil Rowe, Bob Carney, and many others on the deep sea fauna of the northern Gulf, Continental Margin Ecosystems on a Worldwide Scale (COMARGE). It is a wonderful characterization that never would have been possible without Census, and now it can be used again to further study the impacts from the spill on those deep sea communities.
MB: On a different note, with the 10-year Census program concluding this year, do you have any specific fond memories or experiences with the Census that you would like to share?
WT: Other than all the great new biodiversity information gained and new science uncovered, there have been some incredible bonds developed around the world by scientists and institutions that have not worked together pre-Census. My new colleagues from Chile to Venezuela to France to New Zealand and more will definitely increase biodiversity studies and interactions for years, if not decades, to come.
MB: What do you think were the primary strengths and weaknesses of the program?
WT: The strengths were definitely the primary, worldwide, large projects that furthered science on biodiversity, and also the cooperation and collaboration by scientists worldwide. We made strides measured in years that would have normally taken decades. The main weakness in my personal opinion is that we did not do a true census of marine life. With the World Registry of Marine Species and the Encyclopedia of Life, and some projects like the Biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico Project, we are well on our way, but we did not do an “all-taxa inventory” like I would like to have seen accomplished. Mark Costello, Philippe Bouchet, and others have recently shown us pretty conclusively that it is important for us to know what lives in each Large Marine Ecosystem or ocean basin in order for us to do significant biogeographic analyses or comparative holistic studies of these large marine systems.
MB: After the Census ‘Decade of Discovery’ report is released in October this year, what do you think should be the next steps for the marine biodiversity research community?
WT: Besides consuming a few margaritas while kicked back on a tropical beach enjoying the local biodiversity, we should build upon what we have accomplished. We should continue the great collaborations and projects, as best possible, and we should get busy on those all-taxa inventories, so we will know what lives where in the oceans.
