The other two groups were not exposed to oil: one received UV, and a control group was exposed only to non-UV visible light.
Starlet sea anemone simulator#
Berger and his colleagues, including WHOI senior scientist Ann Tarrant and WHOI marine chemist Collin Ward, used a solar simulator machine as a light source, which allowed them to control the type and amount of light that the animals were exposed to.įour groups of anemones were studied: one received both oil and ultraviolet radiation, and another received oil with only non-UV visible light. The oil, which originated from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill and had become weathered in the ocean from wave action, evaporation, and sunlight, was dissolved in a diluted seawater so it could be absorbed into the anemone’s permeable bodies. To see if the double whammy of oil and sunlight would be more harmful to the anemones than just oil alone, Berger put live samples into Petri dishes-three to a dish-and exposed the animals to various levels of oil and sunlight over a 24-hour study period. The fact that these centimeter-sized creatures are translucent was also helpful, as it allowed UV rays to easily penetrate their bodies. East Coast, and are exposed to UV radiation, they were an ideal model organism for this study.” Because these anemones are a common salt marsh animal that live all over the U.S. “This is because sunlight, and especially ultraviolet radiation, interacts with chemicals in the oil and can enhance their toxicity. “We think that animals living in shallow coastal waters might be extra vulnerable to oil spills,” says Berger. And he’s found that phototoxicity-when sunlight makes chemicals more toxic-can occur when the anemones are exposed to both oil and ultraviolet (UV) light in their murky salt marsh homes.
Cory Berger, an MIT-WHOI Joint Program student who has an affinity for these tiny tentacled creatures (scientifically known as Nematostella vectensis), has been studying their physiological responses to chemical pollution in the Tarrant Lab-oil spills, in particular. Marsh-dwelling sea anemones are a case in point. But toss some sunshine into the mix and it could spell disaster for some marine animals.
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