The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) accident in the northern Gulf of Mexico occurred on April 20, 2010 at a water depth of 1525 meters, and a deep-sea plume was detected within one month. Oil contacted and persisted in parts of the bottom of the deep-sea in the Gulf of Mexico. As part of the response to the accident, monitoring cruises were deployed in fall 2010 to measure potential impacts on the two main soft-bottom benthic invertebrate groups: macrofauna and meiofauna. Sediment was collected using a multicorer so that samples for chemical, physical and biological analyses could be taken simultaneously and analyzed using multivariate methods. The footprint of the oil spill was identified by creating a new variable with principal components analysis where the first factor was indicative of the oil spill impacts and this new variable mapped in a geographic information system to identify the area of the oil spill footprint. The most severe relative reduction of faunal abundance and diversity extended to 3 km from the wellhead in all directions covering an area about 24 km2. Moderate impacts were observed up to 17 km towards the southwest and 8.5 km towards the northeast of the wellhead, covering an area 148 km2. Benthic effects were correlated to total petroleum hydrocarbon, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and barium concentrations, and distance to the wellhead; but not distance to hydrocarbon seeps. Thus, benthic effects are more likely due to the oil spill, and not natural hydrocarbon seepage. Recovery rates in the deep sea are likely to be slow, on the order of decades or longer.

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Meiofauna studies often investigate community structure and function where biomass estimates and taxonomic analysis are required. Nondestructive methods of biomass estimation are necessary to preserve specimens for subsequent taxonomic analysis. A semi-automated protocol to estimate meiofaunal biomass was developed to meet this need. The method improves upon previous indirect biomass techniques by using digital microphotography and analytical graphics software to obtain better estimates of biovolume. The technique is not fully automated because the digital images require some manipulation. Dry mass and carbon mass were estimated for two dominant components of marine benthic meiofauna (Nematoda and Harpacticoida) as the product of conversion factors and body volumes. The technique was validated by comparing indirect dry and carbon mass estimates to direct measurements using an analytical balance and carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen (CHN) elemental analyzer. No significant difference was found between the semi-automated method and direct measurements for harpacticoid dry or carbon mass (P = 0.68 and P = 0.74, respectively), or nematode dry mass (P = 0.28) or carbon content (P = 0.17). The semi-automated indirect method was used to estimate the biomass of meiofauna (13,279 harpacticoids and 12,288 nematodes) collected from the deep-sea Gulf of Mexico. Estimated average wet mass was compared to direct analytical balance measurements from an earlier, independent study in the same area. Wet mass estimates generated by the indirect method (2.67 ± 0.86 µg/harpacticoid and 0.85 ± 4.78 µg/ nematode) were similar to direct measurements in the earlier study (2.80 µg/harpacticoid and 0.85 µg/nematode). The semi-automated indirect method is about three times faster than traditional microscope methods to measure body volume, estimates biomass comparably to direct methods, and conserves samples and images of samples for other analyses.

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