Simulation of Deepwater Horizon oil plume reveals substrate specialization within a complex community of hydrocarbon degraders.

ABSTRACT: The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) accident released an estimated 4.1 million barrels of oil and 10¹⁰ mol of natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico, forming deep-sea plumes of dispersed oil droplets and dissolved gases that were largely degraded by bacteria. During the course of this 3-mo disaster a series of different bacterial taxa were enriched in succession within deep plumes, but the metabolic capabilities of the different populations that controlled degradation rates of crude oil components are poorly understood. We experimentally reproduced dispersed plumes of fine oil droplets in Gulf of Mexico seawater and successfully replicated the enrichment and succession of the principal oil-degrading bacteria observed during the DWH event. We recovered near-complete genomes, whose ph

SUBMITTER: Hu P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5514739 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature