Elisa Baldrighi: Deep benthic community restoration in the Gulf of Mexico – sediment meiofaunal community assessment for the habitat impact evaluation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Title
Deep benthic community restoration in the Gulf of Mexico – sediment meiofaunal community assessment for the habitat impact evaluation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Mentor
Department
Biosketch
Elisa Baldrighi, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor in the Department of Biology. She received her doctorate in Marine Biology and Ecology from the Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, in 2013. Her research focuses on studying the ecology and taxonomy of benthic organisms especially meiofauna and nematodes (i.e., invertebrates <1mm in size inhabiting the marine sediments) and with particular attention to deep-sea systems, extreme shallow and deep-sea environments (e.g., hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, pockmarks). Her interests range from the study of the relationship between biodiversity, functional diversity of benthic invertebrates and ecosystem functioning to the use of meiofauna as an ideal bioindicator for assessing the ecological quality status of an environment and to evaluate the impacts (natural and anthropogenic) on benthic systems.
Project overview
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) incident in the northern Gulf of Mexico occurred in 2010 at a water depth of 1525 meters, in Mississippi Canyon Block 252, releasing an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil over the following three months. Significant DWH-derived pollution products moved into offshore and deep-water sediments heavily impacting the benthic communities and the ecosystem functioning.
Our laboratory works to investigate the abundance, diversity and distribution of deep-sea meiofaunal benthic community and nematodes inhabiting the Gulf of Mexico. Our project aims to use the meiofauna as sentinel of environmental impact and specifically, to evaluate the effects and recovery time of the system after the DWH oil spill.
The sediment samples we analyze in the laboratory are collected during annual oceanographic cruises in the Gulf of Mexico, which students are welcome to attend if they wish (better if they are not seasick!).
Once in the lab, students will be involved in sediment sample processing for the study of the meiofauna:
- Meiofaunal extraction from the sediment and
- Meiofaunal and nematode count and identification (a lot of work at the microscope!). Working with the marine ecology lab means to become confident with needles and forceps, stereomicroscope and microscope and with very tiny organisms, learn about their diversity (taxonomy), ecology and their role as indicators of environmental stress. Students that would like to join us should be curious about marine life and interested in learning about organism identification. Suggested, but not required, is to take the Marine Biology (BIOL 321) course.
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