In addition to its position as a pillar of New Orleans cuisine, the humble oyster has also taken on another, more troubling role—serving as an indicator of water contamination in the Mississippi River Delta and the Lousiana Gulf.
In recent years, in addition to its position as a pillar of New Orleans cuisine, the humble oyster has also taken on another, more troubling role—serving as an indicator of water contamination in the Mississippi River Delta and the Louisiana Gulf. In this contribution, Flavio D’Abramo, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute investigating organisms’ biological changes in relation to different kinds of environmental stresses, identifies the links between oysters, industrial pollution, and antibiotic resistance: the biological hallmark of the Anthropocene.