Dataset Information

Bacterial succession in a petroleum land treatment unit.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial community dynamics were investigated in a land treatment unit (LTU) established at a site contaminated with highly weathered petroleum hydrocarbons in the C(10) to C(32) range. The treatment plot, 3,000 cubic yards of soil, was supplemented with nutrients and monitored weekly for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), soil water content, nutrient levels, and aerobic heterotrophic bacterial counts. Weekly soil samples were analyzed with 16S rRNA gene terminal restriction fragment (TRF) analysis to monitor bacterial community structure and dynamics during bioremediation. TPH degradation was rapid during the first 3 weeks and slowed for the remainder of the 24-week project. A sharp increase in plate counts was reported during the first 3 weeks, indicating an increase in biomass associated with petroleum degradation. Principal components analysis of TRF patterns revealed a series of sample clusters describing bacterial succession during the study. The largest shifts in bacterial community structure began as the TPH degradation rate slowed and the bacterial cell counts decreased. For the purpose of analyzing bacterial dynamics, phylotypes were generated by associating TRFs from three enzyme digests with 16S rRNA gene clones. Two phylotypes associated with Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas were dominant in TRF patterns from samples during rapid TPH degradation. After the TPH degradation rate slowed, four other phylotypes gained dominance in the community while Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas phylotypes decreased in abundance. These data suggest that specific phylotypes of bacteria were associated with the different phases of petroleum degradation in the LTU.

SUBMITTER: Kaplan CW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC368334 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Bacterial succession in a petroleum land treatment unit.

Kaplan Christopher W CW Kitts Christopher L CL

Applied and environmental microbiology 20040301 3

Bacterial community dynamics were investigated in a land treatment unit (LTU) established at a site contaminated with highly weathered petroleum hydrocarbons in the C(10) to C(32) range. The treatment plot, 3,000 cubic yards of soil, was supplemented with nutrients and monitored weekly for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), soil water content, nutrient levels, and aerobic heterotrophic bacterial counts. Weekly soil samples were analyzed with 16S rRNA gene terminal restriction fragment (TRF) ana ...[more]

PMID: 15006804

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Project description:Subsurface petroleum reservoirs are an important component of the deep biosphere where indigenous microorganisms live under extreme conditions and in isolation from the Earth's surface for millions of years. However, unlike the bulk of the deep biosphere, the petroleum reservoir deep biosphere is subject to extreme anthropogenic perturbation, with the introduction of new electron acceptors, donors and exogenous microbes during oil exploration and production. Despite the fundamental and practical significance of this perturbation, there has never been a systematic evaluation of the ecological changes that occur over the production lifetime of an active offshore petroleum production system. Analysis of the entire Halfdan oil field in the North Sea (32 producing wells in production for 1-15 years) using quantitative PCR, multigenic sequencing, comparative metagenomic and genomic bins reconstruction revealed systematic shifts in microbial community composition and metabolic potential, as well as changing ecological strategies in response to anthropogenic perturbation of the oil field ecosystem, related to length of time in production. The microbial communities were initially dominated by slow growing anaerobes such as members of the Thermotogales and Clostridiales adapted to living on hydrocarbons and complex refractory organic matter. However, as seawater and nitrate injection (used for secondary oil production) delivered oxidants, the microbial community composition progressively changed to fast growing opportunists such as members of the Deferribacteres, Delta-, Epsilon- and Gammaproteobacteria, with energetically more favorable metabolism (for example, nitrate reduction, H2S, sulfide and sulfur oxidation). This perturbation has profound consequences for understanding the microbial ecology of the system and is of considerable practical importance as it promotes detrimental processes such as reservoir souring and metal corrosion. These findings provide a new conceptual framework for understanding the petroleum reservoir biosphere and have consequences for developing strategies to manage microbiological problems in the oil industry.

Dataset Information

Bacterial succession in a petroleum land treatment unit.

Publications

Bacterial succession in a petroleum land treatment unit.

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