Wokil Bam

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | WHOI · Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry

Radioisotopes have been used in earth and environmental sciences for over 150 years and provide unique tools to study environmental processes in great detail from a cellular level through to an oceanic basin scale. These nuclear techniques have been employed to understand coastal and marine ecosystems via laboratory and field studies in terms of ho...

An important pathway for CO 2 sinking in the ocean is via the "biological pump", driven by the production of particulate organic carbon (POC) in the surface ocean and its subsequent export to the deeper ocean via vertical settling. Here we examine the vertical fluxes of POC in the continental slope of the northern Gulf of Mexico by utilizing the sh...

In recent years, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea have experienced unusual and unprecedented pelagic Sargassum blooms, which may adversely affect coastal ecosystems and productive ocean. Sargassum has the potential to scavenge trace elements and radionuclides from seawater, and when bioaccumulated and thus concentrated, can pose a potential...

In recent years, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea have experienced unusual and unprecedented pelagic Sargassum blooms, which may adversely affect coastal ecosystems and productive ocean. Sargassum has the potential to scavenge trace elements and radionuclides from seawater, and when bioaccumulated and thus concentrated, can pose a potential...

The Arctic Ocean is witnessing major climate change impacts which can be most directly observed in the systematic decline in seasonal ice coverage. From the collection and analysis of particulate and dissolved activities of 210Po and 210Pb from four deep-water super stations, as a part of the U.S. Arctic GEOTRACES cruise during 2015, and in conjunc...

The partitioning coefficient, K d , which is defined by the reversible sorption processes between a solid and an aqueous phase at equilibrium, is one of the most important parameters to assess environmental transport and risk. In this study, a series of simple laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate sorption properties of 134 Cs on a m...

Environmental microplastic particles (MPs) represent a potential threat to many aquatic animals, and experimental exposure studies, when done well, offer a quantitative approach to assess this stress systematically and reliably. While the scientific literature on MP studies in aquatic environments is rapidly growing, there is still much to learn, a...

The distribution and vertical fluxes of particulate organic carbon and other key elements in the Arctic Ocean are primarily governed by the spatial and seasonal changes in primary productivity, areal extent of ice cover, and lateral exchange between the shelves and interior basins. The Arctic Ocean has undergone rapid increase in primary productivi...

Phosphate is a major nonpoint source pollutant in both the Louisiana local streams as well as in the Gulf of Mexico coastal waters. Phosphates from agricultural runoff have contributed to the eutrophication of global surface waters. Phosphate environmental dissemination and eutrophication problems are not yet well understood. Thus, this study aimed...

This study utilizes suspended particles and seafloor sediments collected from the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) continental margin to study the fate, transport, residence times and accumulation rates of particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Total particulate-PAHs and particulate organic carbon (POC) varied between 0.9 and 7.0 ng/L...

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Terrestrial arthropods play an important role in saltmarsh ecosystems, mainly affecting the saltmarsh’s primary production as the main consumers of terrestrial primary production and decomposition. Some of these arthropods, including selected insects and spiders, can be used as ecological indicators of overall marsh environmental health, as they ar...

Oil observation on ground NOAA/NRDA data 2010/2014 in Louisiana coast (Source: NOAA/NRDA 2015, http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/oil-spill/gulf-spill-data/). (TIFF)

The average concentrations of total PAHs (ng/g) in Barataria Bay sediments impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (TIFF)

Mean (±SE) abundance of individual group of arthropods collected per sweep net sample in reference, light oiled and heavily oiled sites in 2013(blue) and 2014 (orange). (TIFF)

The average concentrations of total PAHs (ng/g) in reference sites (Delacroix) sediments. (TIFF)

Field sampling of terrestrial arthropods using sweep net in Barataria Bay in 2014. (TIFF)

Large-scale ecosystem disturbances can alter the flow of energy through food webs, but such processes are not well defined for Gulf of Mexico saltmarsh ecosystems vulnerable to multiple interacting stressors. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill significantly affected the composition of terrestrial saltmarsh communities in Louisiana, and thus...

Sediment-water interface represents an important exchange surface that regulates the cycling and transfer of many elements and nutrients between sediments and overlying water. Traditionally, rate of transfer across the sediment–water interface is determined by deploying benthic chambers or modeling the depth profiles of a dissolved species of inter...

Saltmarshes are under continuous multiple stressors such as, land loss, erosion, climate change, environmental pollutions and oil spills, which affect the ecological communities inhabiting saltmarshes. Terrestrial arthropods play an important role in the ecology of saltmarshes, affecting primary production and decomposition. Arthropods are often fo...

Saltmarshes are one of the most productive ecosystems, supporting high abundance of different species. Terrestrial arthropods play an important role in the ecology of saltmarshes, affecting primary production and decomposition. Terrestrial arthropods provide food to terrestrial and marine vertebrates and act as an important tropic link to other ver...

The availability of energy to higher trophic levels is largely dependent on available prey resources and any changes in this resource may have important consequences for species fitness, as well as the structure and function of the overall food web. Declining abundances of terrestrial arthropods observed following the DeepWater Horizon oil spill ha...