[Coral-List] Active mortality event at Flower Garden Banks

Kosmynin, Vladimir Vladimir.Kosmynin at dep.state.fl.us
Fri Jul 29 11:09:13 EDT 2016


I agree with Les.  Oil is closest than any other possible cause of such multy taxa mortality, and thus it is necessary to collect samples of water at FGB and in different directions off it to trace any signs of oil.  It doesn't exclude other hypotheses, which should be tested too.  NOAA should compile emergency team of scientists for this case.

It is all really bad; FGB is a unique reef system in the Gulf.

Vladimir N. Kosmynin




> On Jul 28, 2016, at 9:45 AM, Kaufman, Leslie S <lesk at bu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hey Bill.  
> 
> Oh, wow- the nightmare. It's like when something bad afoot finally 
> reaches
out to an actual family member.
> 
> OK.
> 
> Emma and GP- beside what you'd already mentioned, I suggest preserving
affected tissues for metagenomic analysis (DNA and mRNA).  We do not have to run them, but as the situation clarifies, sequence and transcriptomic data could be clinchers.  
> 
> It doesn't sound like temperature, but of course thermal data will be
important- if there are loggers out might be wise to download them just to make sure the data are secure.
> 
> Might be worth talking to Esther Peters for instructions on 
> histological
preservation, but since this is a cross-taxon mass-kill most of the pathology will likely just indicate (superficially) that the critters are sick and dying, not necessarily how come.
> 
> I think a brief moratorium during close monitoring are justified as a
cautionary move.  This won't be fun.  
> 
> There has not been any oil spotted in the area, right?  Because that 
> is
one thing that this sounds like.  Have there ever been seeps observed actually within the reef caps on either E or W?  Grasping at straws here..
> 
> Les
> 
> 
> 
> Les Kaufman
> Professor of Biology
> Boston University Marine Program
> Faculty Fellow, Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future 
> and Conservation Fellow Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science 
> Conservation International lesk at bu.edu <mailto:lesk at bu.edu>
> 
> 


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