Abstract
This data set represents collections taken by demersal longline fishing gears in the northern Gulf of Mexico and West Florida Shelf. They include station location information, standardized fish catch data (numbers, weights, sex, length), PAH contamination levels determined from sub-samples, and photographs of fishes with unusual external skin conditions that were observed in longline cruises undertaken between 2011 and 2014. The 2012-2014 data were collected during GoMRI/C-IMAGE sponsored cruises. Data from 2011 are included because they are the subject of two papers published with data from them: Murawski, S.A., W. T. Hogarth, E.B. Peebles, L. Barbieri. 2014. Prevalence of External Skin Lesions and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Concentrations in Gulf of Mexico Fishes, Post Deepwater Horizon. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 143:4,1084-1097 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00028487.2014.911205. Snyder, S.M., E. L. Pulster, D.L. Wetzel and S.A. Murawski. 2015. PAH Exposure in Gulf of Mexico Demersal Fishes, Post-Deepwater Horizon. Environmental Science and Technology (publ. online) http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01870 More information about all data and photos can be found in the “Read Me” document included in the dataset.
Purpose
We surveyed offshore fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011 and 2012, following persistent reports of abnormal skin lesions and other pathologies in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The incidence of skin lesions in 2011 sampling was most frequent in some bottom-dwelling species along the continental shelf edge north of the Deepwater Horizon site. Longline surveys revealed that by 2012 the overall frequency of lesions in northern Gulf of Mexico (NGM) fishes in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon had declined 53%, with severity also declining. Relatively high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolites (up to 470,000 ng naphthalene equivalents/g bile wet weight), indicative of oil-related pollution, were found in fish bile in 2011; concentrations of summed PAHs measured in fish liver and muscle were relatively low (<35 ng/g) due to the efficient metabolism of these compounds by teleost fish. Significant declines in bile concentrations of naphthalene and phenanthrene metabolites in Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus between 2011 and 2012 indicate an episodic exposure to elevated levels of hydrocarbons of petrogenic origin. The composition of PAH parent compounds and alkylated homologs in Red Snapper liver samples was highly correlated with oil collected at the Deepwater Horizon wellhead but was less coherent with other PAH sources in the NGM. The elevated 2011 prevalence of skin lesions in some NGM species was unrelated to surface salinity or temperature anomalies and was not the result of an epizootic observable in our histopathology samples but was positively correlated with PAH concentration. Thus, we fail to reject the null hypothesis that elevated skin lesion frequency is unrelated to PAH exposure from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Keywords
fish population, skin lesions, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Concentrations
UDI
R1.x135.120:0002
Date
8-29-2016 12:00 AM
Point of Contact
Murawski, Steven A
University of South Florida / College of Marine Science
140 7th Ave South
St. Petersburg , FL 33701
USA
smurawski@usf.edu
Funding Source
RFP-I
Start of Data Collection
7-7-2011
End of Data Collection
8-23-2012
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7266/N7GT5K56
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 License.
Scholar Commons Citation
Murawski, Steven, "Lesion data from fish collected off Terrebonne Bay, LA to the Dry Tortugas, FL, 2011-2014" (2016). C-IMAGE data. 22.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cimage_data/22
XML metadata
Comments
Data and metadata is made available by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) through a CC0 license in compliance with the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). The original dataset landing pages may be accessed at GRIIDC’s dataset monitoring webpage.
Data users are encouraged to contact the originating investigator prior to data use and provide appropriate credit.