Courtney McCorstin TA Alex Pilote October 1 2014 BP Oil Spill Questions 1 In a small paragraph describe the results and conclusions of the experiment based on the press release In the BP Oil Spill press release researchers McCall and Pennings conducted a study on a coastal salt marsh to determine the impact of oil spills on it The BP oil spill affected many arthropods that lived in the marshes near the coastal regions of the incident They took samples of invertebrates on land and water that year and then another sample a year later They had samples from marshes not affected by the oil spill to compare to their results of the ones affected It showed that even though the host plants looked healthy and there were very low levels of oil over 50 of the number of arthropods were reduced However the results taken from a year later showed that the number of arthropods had gone up Since the arthropods host plants remained healthy it meant that recovery for the crabs insects and spiders was possible 2 Based on the press release write down the journal title credited authors year released and 3 keywords Using this information find the corresponding scientific article using one of the search engines talked about in lab Journal Title Disturbance and Recovery of Salt Marsh Arthropod Communities following BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Credited Authors Brittany McCall and Steven Pennings Year Released 2012 3 keywords arthropods oil spill effects 3 Who wrote the press release Was it the same person as any of the research article authors Laura Tolley wrote the press release article Even though she got her information from Brittany McCall and Steven Pennings who wrote the scientific article she is not a credited research article author 4 Who do you believe is the main audience of a press release and what is its primary purpose Who do you believe is the main audience of the scientific article I think the main audience of press releases is everyday people who for example heard about the disaster of the oil spill and wanted to know more about its effects and consequences The press release needs to be simple enough that the majority of people reading it can understand what it is saying Normally when people want to know more about a topic they enter it into a search engine and click the first articles they see They also read about it in the newspaper or online newspapers where they can modify their search for example BP oil spill effects The main purpose of a press release is Courtney McCorstin TA Alex Pilote October 1 2014 to convey information to a mass group of people I think that the main audience of the scientific articles is other scientists themselves These articles provide sound research and explanation that other scientists can use in their own research 5 The introductions of scientific papers provide necessary background and relevance to an experiment much like the blurbs starting each of our labs In your own words paraphrase the introduction of the scientific article in a few sentences Provide an in text citation parenthetical at the end as noted on pgs 53 54 of the lab manual Oil spills cause a sizeable amount of damage to the ecosystems of coastal wetlands A new study is being conducted on the effect of oil on terrestrial arthropods which play an important role in coastal marshes Arthropods are extremely sensitive to oil and are inhibited in even places where the plants are unaffected Sometimes arthropods can reinhabit oiled marshes which shows that some arthropods may be resilient to oil exposure When studying the marshes health following environmental impacts such as oil spills the arthropods sensitivity is a good indicator McCall and Pennings 2012 6 Briefly paraphrase summarize the methods of the scientific article again providing an in text citation Was this information found in the press release There were 10 sites chosen in 2010 and 12 sites chosen in 2012 in Louisiana and Mississippi These sites were characterized by salt marsh vegetation because they were exposed to regular flooding by seawater A majority of these sites contained Spartina Alterniflora which is a grass found in interdial wetlands These grasses are more affected by floodwaters because of its low elevation and abundance The low elevation means that it is one of the first and worst communities in a salt marsh to be affected by oil spills Arthropods that were abundant in these areas were collected from these chosen sites The abiotic conditions of each site had to be characterized the plant and arthropod community and the abundance of two common marine invertebrate using transect sampling The plants samples stems had oil residue on them but for the most part they looked healthy The damaged plants were bisected and then had each section researched The soil was first weighed when it was wet and then stored for 4 days at 60 degrees to measure the soil water content The nitrogen content on the Spartina Alterniflora leafs were examined After all of this the researchers concluded that the fiddler crabs were the animals least affected by the oil spill They were extremely abundant and had strong trends in their p values because of the number of replicate sites McCall and Pennings 2012 7 In a paragraph or two describe the results and conclusions of the experiment based on the research article again with an in text citation The researchers found that soil organic content water content and soil salinity did not vary greatly between oiled and control sites The nitrogen content was higher in oiled sites and slightly higher in 2010 than 2011 because of the levels of the Spartina leaf The density of the marine snail Littoraria was not affected by the oil and the Courtney McCorstin TA Alex Pilote October 1 2014 density of the crab burrows were higher in control sites and in 2011 than 2010 Terrestrial arthropod communities decreased by 50 at oiled sites but made a recovery in 2011 as their numbers grew Due to modest site replication and moderate variability among sites predators sucking herbivores and stem boring herbivores were the only three guilds that showed a statistical significance between the oil sites and controlled McCall and Pennings 2012 8 In a few sentences explain figure 3 What is the overall take home message of this figure Figure 3 shows the densities of marine invertebrates and terrestrial arthropods at oiled and control sites in 2010 and 2011 This figure compares the different densities of oil and controlled sites as