Is it possible that things might be OK on the Gulf Coast after all?

Have you been anxious about the plight of marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, ever since the Deepwater Horizon spill?  I know I have.  Some possible good news today though, at least if this article is correct.  It seems as though the numbers of baby fish showing up in coastal waters (what marine biologists call recruitment) is at least as high as usual, and possibly higher for some species such as lane snapper and spotted sea trout.  The most telling quote is from scientist Joel Fodrie from UNC, who says ““My preliminary assessment, it looks good, it looks like we dodged a bullet.”

Comments

[Mike Lisieski]

This looks encouraging!

It's troubling to me, however, that anybody's willing to hint that everything's okay on the basis of such a narrow assessment. The quote from that article: "The most unusual thing we are seeing are the incredible numbers of young speckled trout” is sort of ominous When biodiversity in an ecosystem increases, you often see large numbers of species that for one reason or another can tolerate the factor(s) that killed their competitors. If there's an increase in the number of juveniles of a few hardy species, this could indicate that less hardy species have been killed or driven off. We won't know if this is the case or not until more complete information is available.

[Al Dove]

Good point. The increased dominance of one species can be a harbinger of diversity loss. Lets hope not; lets hope its actually a good year class and that things are not so bad.