Health impacts from a 2010 spill are found even in dolphins born years later.
Nearly 10 years have passed since then, and the oil slick has long since dispersed. Yet, despite early predictions, area wildlife are still feeling the effects of that oil, and research published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry has shown that negative health impacts have befallen not only dolphins alive at the time of the spill, but also in their young, born years later.
A team of researchers, including UConn Department of Pathobiology Professor and Director of the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program Sylvain De Guise, is part of a network conducting a long-term study on the health of bottlenose dolphins living in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay, in the vicinity of the disaster. This population of dolphins includes individuals who lived through the disaster and some born afterwards.
«We were on the ready and as soon as we could, and in 2011 we initiated a comprehensive health assessment where 60 to 80 people in the field worked together to find and safely pursue a multi-disciplinary, multi-expertise sample collection and study effort to assess the dolphins’ health,» says De Guise.
De Guise explains that after collection, samples were processed in 60 to 80 different specialized labs, and the researchers then regrouped to put the information together. De Guise’s research group specializes in studying the immune system, and from the very first set of samples they started to see consistent and abnormal immune responses in the Barataria Bay dolphins, compared with a similar control group of dolphins from Sarasota Bay who were not exposed to oil.
For the Barataria Bay dolphins, the researchers observed immune cells called T-cells that were overly responsive to stimulation. The body uses T-cells to respond to a stimulus, or something recognized as foreign. In particular, there were increased numbers of cells called regulatory T cells, or Tregs, which De Guise describes as the cells that help put the brakes on during an immune response to prevent the body from over-responding and doing more harm than good.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Connecticut. Original written by Elaina Hancock. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.