Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impacts on Organisms and Habitats

• Scientists have learned, and will continue to learn, important lessons by studying the impacts of the largest accidental oil spill in history on marine habitats and life in the Gulf of Mexico, such as impacts on large vertebrates (fish, cetaceans, birds), deep-sea organisms, phytoplankton and other marine microbes, coastal and pelagic fishes, and marsh plants and animals. Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) researchers are finding that sublethal impacts (those that do not immediately kill the animal, but affect its feeding habits, navigation, gene expression, and/or reproduction) are important, and understanding them provides critical insight about longerterm, population-level impacts of the spill on marine life.