Measured 13ɛ values were used to investigate shifts towards larger fractionations expected for oil uptake and in mass-balance isotope mixing models ( Spies and DesMarais, 1983) to calculate % selleckchem oil use: %oil=100*(13εCONTROL-13εSAMPLE)/(13εCONTROL-13εOIL)A similar mass

balance mixing equation was used to calculate % oil use from Δ14C data: %oil=100*(Δ14CCONTROL-Δ14CSAMPLE)/(Δ14CCONTROL-(-1000)) For Δ14C results for barnacles collected in 2000, a post-analysis decay correction was extrapolated from published data (Druffel et al., 2010) and applied to account for the higher 14C activity of seawater in 2000 than in 2010. This change in seawater 14C activity is due to ongoing loss of bomb radiocarbon that was added to the atmosphere and biosphere during aboveground nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s. To account for this change in activity, 29‰ has been subtracted from the measured Δ14C values for year 2000 results, to give a common baseline for comparison with all 2010 results, which are reported as analyzed. The detection limit for the % oil calculations

was about 0.3% oil incorporation, based on the average 95% confidence limits for Δ14C means of triplicate individual samples listed in Table 1. Incubations of estuarine water showed no evidence for enhanced respiration in Barataria Bay due to microbial use of Deepwater Horizon oil. Incubations were performed at multiple stations (Fig. 1) along the Barataria transect hypothesized to be impacted by oil and along the Breton Sound transect that lacked oil inputs.

Respiration rates IPI-145 solubility dmso for the transects, given in average mmol oxygen consumed m−3 d−1 ± standard error of the mean (N), were 28 ± 2 (10) for Barataria in late August, 27 ± 2 (17) for Barataria in early October, and 41 ± 5 (9) for Breton Sound in early October. Barataria respiration rates were significantly lower (P < 0.05, unpaired t test) rather than higher than Breton Sound respiration rates. Barnacles and mussels were analyzed initially for δ13C to test for oil uptake in comparisons of Thymidine kinase animals collected from oiled vs. unoiled control sites. Mussel δ13C values were very similar at oiled and unoiled sites and animals from oiled sites did not show shifts towards larger 13ɛ values expected for oil incorporation (Fig. 2). Barnacle δ13C values were more variable across the salinity gradients of the transects, and the 2010 Barataria samples collected after the spill had lower δ13C values that would be consistent with oil uptake (Fig. 3). But this apparent shift towards oil values largely disappeared after baseline inorganic carbon effects were normalized out using shell δ13C values, and 13ɛ values were similar for all collections (Fig. 3). Thus, 13ɛ averages ± SEM (N) for the 2010 post-spill barnacles were 17.2 ± 0.3‰(18) and not significantly different (P > 0.05, t tests) than control values of 17.4 ± 0.