Meeting Abstract
Oil dispersion begins immediately following a spill and is detrimental to ocean ecosystems. However, this dispersal process facilitates bioremediation and eventually leads to mitigation of the spill, enabling ecosystems to recover. Aurelia aurita, also known as moon jellies, have mucus which houses hydrocarbon-consuming bacteria that have been shown in previous research to consume crude oil. Additionally, the jelly mucus aggregates oil droplets from the water column. In our study, we are testing the hypothesis that a greater number of live jellies results in faster and more complete crude oil consumption via the nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients in their mucus, which supports bacterial growth. For this study, we constructed 3 custom aquaria that are built with circular water flow. Our treatments include 3 equally-sized 12-gallon aquaria housing one jelly, two jellies, and a no-jelly control, each with the same amount of crude oil added every week for 10 weeks. Every week following 6 days under treatment, we quantify nitrogen and phosphorous in all treatments as well as the number of oil droplets in mucus released by the jellies in the jelly treatments. We predict that aquaria with more jellies will have higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorous, which would support more bacterial growth, and more droplets of oil trapped in jelly mucus. Our results will be discussed.
