In collaboration with:

• Main Authors: Mace G. Barron, Mark Carls, Jeff Short, Stanley Rice, Ron Heintz, Michelle Rau, Richard Di Giulio
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY; Pacific; Alaska North Slope; north slope; Pink salmon; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.645.3934; http://www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/191100560.pdf

Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude oil is known to have greater toxicity to aquatic organisms in the presence of ultraviolet radiation (UV) compared to toxicity determined in tests performed under standard laboratory lighting with minimal UV. This photoenhanced toxicity of ANS crude oil has only been demonstrated in small translucent organisms, including shellfish embryos, larval and juvenile crustaceans, and larval Pacific herring. Pink salmon are known to be sensitive to ANS crude oil toxicity when chronically exposed as embryos, but in the environment the eggs are shielded from UV during development. Fry and juvenile life stages of pink salmon may be exposed to UV during emergence and migration to the ocean, but their sensitivity to phototoxicity has never been reported. The objective of this study was determine if weathered ANS crude oil would be phototoxic to juvenile pink salmon under conditions of short-term exposures to high levels of oil that may occur during an oil spill, and environmentally relevant levels of UV in natural waters. Two toxicity tests were performed to determine whether ANS crude oil was likely to be phototoxic to juvenile pink salmon. In Test 1, two separate groups of juvenile pink