Illustration of the recovery of the coastal ecology of Louisiana, USA, five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the recovery of fish, bird and plankton populations, long-term impacts are still felt. Shoreline erosion occurred after die-back of marsh grass (far left), and soil microbe populations (circular inset, bottom left) changed. Numbers of bottle-nose dolphins (far right) are still low. Insects like acrobat ants (Crematogaster sp.) are only just returning. Also shown are plankton (circular inset at centre left), marine crustaceans, marine mollusks, and marsh birds and snails.