Effects of crude oil contaminated sediment on the early life stages of lumpsucker (Cyclopterus lumpus L.).

Abstract

Lumpsucker (Cyclopterus lumpus) is a demersal and shallow water spawning fish species with a relatively long egg incubation period. In case of acute oil pollution the embryos will be exposed to PAHs in the water for a relative long period. In this experiment we made a flow through rock column incubation system with oil contaminated gravel and exposed fertilized lumpsucker eggs to the water soluble fractions (WSF) of North Sea crude oil. During the incubation period we looked for differences in embryo development, mortality, hatching success, larvae length and size, embryo/larvae histology and possible abnormalities within oil exposed (High dose tPAH average 3110 µg L-1, low dose tPAH 210 µg L-1 ) and control group (Average tPAH 18 µg L-1 ) . We found no significant differences in either of the checked for parameters, except for the hatching success being much higher in the control treatment vs. the two oil exposed treatments. Despite the fact that we found no significant treatment effect in the oil exposed groups, the observed hatching success in the control units makes us believe that oil has an effect on the embryos ability to hatch and may thus affect the recruitment of lumpsucker in case of exposure towards oil polluted sediments or water during egg incubation.