Gulf of Mexico oil spillScientists: Oil spill's "grim reshuffle" of Gulf food web may destroy region's fishing industry

Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment.

Near the spill site, researchers have documented a massive die-off of pyrosomes — cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms fed on by endangered sea turtles. Along the coast, droplets of oil are being found inside the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds. At the base of the food web, tiny organisms that consume oil and gas are proliferating.

AP reports that if such impacts continue, the scientists warn of a grim reshuffling of sea life that could over time cascade through the ecosystem and imperil the region’s multibillion-dollar fishing industry.

Federal wildlife officials say the impacts are not irreversible, and no tainted seafood has yet been found. Representative Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), who chairs a House committee investigating the spill, warned Tuesday that the problem is just unfolding and toxic oil could be entering seafood stocks as predators eat contaminated marine life.

“You change the base of the food web, it’s going to ripple through the entire food web,” said marine scientist Rob Condon, who found oil-loving bacteria off the Alabama coastline, more than 90 miles from BP’s collapsed Deepwater Horizon drill rig. “Ultimately it’s going to impact fishing and introduce a lot of contaminants into the food web.”

The food web is the fundamental fabric of life in the Gulf. Once referred to as the food chain, the updated term reflects the cyclical nature of a process in which even the largest predator becomes a food source as it dies and decomposes.

AP reports that what has emerged from research done to date are snapshots of disruption across a swath of the northern Gulf of Mexico. It stretches from the 5,000-feet deep waters at the spill site to the continental shelf off Alabama and the shallow coastal marshes of Louisiana.

Much of the spill — estimated at up to 176 million gallons of oil and almost 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas — was broken into small droplets by chemical dispersants at the site of the leaking well head. That reduced the direct impact to the shoreline and kept much of the oil and natural gas suspended in the water.

Immature crabs born offshore, however, are suspected to be bringing that oil —