Studies look at oil spill’s effect on smallest victims

Nearly two years after oil from BP’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico fouled coastal marshes, scientists are studying the impact on some of the area’s tiniest residents: bugs. It’s an important effort because insects and spiders are a food source for larger animals, and also because changes in their populations can affect the ecosystem’s health. Findings so far are mixed. A University of Houston ecologist says insects and spiders that live on marsh grass have rebounded. But an LSU entomologist says her more detailed study shows falling numbers for many kinds of bugs. Both agree that it’s too soon to know the lasting effects of the oil on marsh ecosystems. Many of the areas where the oil came ashore were salt marshes, in which grass roots knit the loose soil and keep it from washing away. Both the Houston and LSU researchers looked at insects and spiders that live in and around the most common of these grasses. In August 2010, the month after the well was capped, researchers found half as many insects and spiders in the oiled areas as in areas that were unaffected by the spill. A year later, they checked the four oiled sites and two more in Terrebonne Bay, and found nearly equal numbers of bugs in both oiled and never-oiled areas. Read the full story from The Associated Press here.