Tony Gill
Genetics Graduate Student in the Whitehead Lab
University of California - Davis
University of California - Davis
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred March 24, 1989, when herring were preparing to spawn in Prince William Sound. The herring population experienced an unanticipated, abrupt decline three years later, due - in part - to a mortality from infectious and parasitic diseases. Linking the oil spill to subsequent population collapse remains controversial. A major insight from years of studying the spill is that embryonic herring are profoundly sensitive to crude oil; exposure to vanishingly low levels of oil over a brief time early in a herring’s life-cycle can have long-lasting health effects, and oil exposure can disturb immune function. Could crude oil exposure during early life have compromised immune system development, thereby increasing the risk of major disease outbreak in later life? To address this question, over the past few years we have sought to simulate the events surrounding the 1993 herring collapse using 1) experimental exposures to environmentally relevant levels of Alaska north slope crude oil, 2) fish from the Prince William Sound population and others, and 3) the same pathogens that caused the disease outbreak. Embryonic and larval herring were exposed to low levels of oil, left to recover and grow-up in clean seawater, then exposed to pathogens. Through this research, we are examining links between the Exxon Valdez oil spill from 1989 to the 1993 collapse of the fishery. shared with permission by NOAA/NWFSC
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AuthorHello - I am Tony Gill and I study how chemicals affect development ArchivesCategories |