Gulf of Mexico - Biota

Biota

Various biota include chemosynthetic communities near cold seeps and nonchemosynthetic communities such as bacteria and other microbenthos, meiofauna, macrofauna, and megafauna (larger organisms such as crabs, sea pens, crinoids, and demersal fish and cetaceans including endangered ones) are living in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico yields more finfish, shrimp, and shellfish annually than the south and mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake, and New England areas combined.

The Smithsonian Institution Gulf of Mexico holdings are expected to provide an important baseline of understanding for future scientific studies on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In Congressional testimony, Dr. Jonathan Coddington, Associate Director of Research and Collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provides a detailed overview of the Gulf collections and their sources which Museum staff have made available on an online map. The samples were collected for years by the former Minerals Management Service (renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement) to help predict the potential impacts of future oil/gas explorations. Since 1979, the specimens have been deposited in the national collections of the National Museum of Natural History.