Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Image credit: kris krüg / CC BY-SA 2.0While it is commonly understood that oil spills negatively impact species and habitats, recent research has been delving into how far reaching that impact truly is.

Published in a special issue on Ocean Spills and Accidents in Springer’s journal, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (AECT), researcher Jeffrey Short details how connected the impact is on the entire “food web.”

According to the research, although the impact on the local environment is well understood, as well as the impact on those species that are obviously affected, not enough research is being done on how that affects the food web at large.

According to Short, it is understood that the seabird population was decimated following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. However, a direct result of that reduced population (i.e., large increases in the fish population thanks to the removal of a primary predator) was not adequately researched.

"Our discovery suggests that the structure of food webs change after an oil spill, which may be much more damaging to fish and other aquatic fauna than the direct impacts of the spilled oil itself," explained Short.

"While the direct effects of oil spills on ecosystems have been well documented, this new study following the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2011 provides the first indication that oil spills can alter the nature of entire aquatic food webs," said Peter S. Ross, editor-in-chief of AECT.