Dataset Information

Microbial Functional Responses in Marine Biofilms Exposed to Deepwater Horizon Spill Contaminants.

ABSTRACT: Marine biofilms are essential biological components that transform built structures into artificial reefs. Anthropogenic contaminants released into the marine environment, such as crude oil and chemical dispersant from an oil spill, may disrupt the diversity and function of these foundational biofilms. To investigate the response of marine biofilm microbiomes from distinct environments to contaminants and to address microbial functional response, biofilm metagenomes were analyzed from two short-term microcosms, one using surface seawater (SSW) and the other using deep seawater (DSW). Following exposure to crude oil, chemical dispersant, and dispersed oil, taxonomically distinct communities were observed between microcosms from different source water challenged with the same contaminants and higher Shannon diversity was observed in SSW metagenomes. Marinobacter, Colwellia, Marinomonas, and Pseudoalteromonas phylotypes contributed to driving community differences between SSW and DSW. SSW metagenomes were dominated by Rhodobacteraceae, known biofilm-formers, and DSW metagenomes had the highest abundance of Marinobacter, associated with hydrocarbon degradation and biofilm formation. Association of source water metadata with treatment groups revealed that control biofilms (no contaminant) harbor the highest percentage of significant KEGG orthologs (KOs). While 70% functional similarity was observed among all metagenomes from both experiments, functional differences between SSW and DSW metagenomes were driven primarily by membrane transport KOs, while functional similarities were attributed to translation and signaling and cellular process KOs. Oil and dispersant metagenomes were 90% similar to each other in their respective experiments, which provides evidence of functional redundancy in these microbiomes. When interrogating microbial functional redundancy, it is crucial to consider how composition and function evolve in tandem when assessing functional responses to changing environmental conditions within marine biofilms. This study may have implications for future oil spill mitigation strategies at the surface and at depth and also provides information about the microbiome functional responses of biofilms on steel structures in the marine built environment.

SUBMITTER: Mugge RL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7947620 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Microbial Functional Responses in Marine Biofilms Exposed to <i>Deepwater Horizon</i> Spill Contaminants.

Mugge Rachel L RL Salerno Jennifer L JL Hamdan Leila J LJ

Frontiers in microbiology 20210225

Marine biofilms are essential biological components that transform built structures into artificial reefs. Anthropogenic contaminants released into the marine environment, such as crude oil and chemical dispersant from an oil spill, may disrupt the diversity and function of these foundational biofilms. To investigate the response of marine biofilm microbiomes from distinct environments to contaminants and to address microbial functional response, biofilm metagenomes were analyzed from two short- ...[more]

PMID: 33717029

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Project description:Sandy beaches support a wide variety of underappreciated biodiversity that is critical to coastal ecosystems. Prior to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the diversity and function of supratidal beach sediment microbial communities along Gulf of Mexico coastlines were not well understood. As such, it was unclear if microbial community compositional changes would occur following exposure to beached oil, if indigenous communities could biodegrade oil, or how cleanup efforts, such as sand washing and sediment redistribution, would impact microbial ecosystem resiliency. Transects perpendicular to the shoreline were sampled from public beaches on Grand Isle, Louisiana, and Dauphin Island, Alabama, over one year. Prior to oil coming onshore, elevated levels of bacteria associated with fecal contamination were detected (e.g., Enterobacteriales and Campylobacterales). Over time, significant shifts within major phyla were identified (e.g., Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria) and fecal indicator groups were replaced by taxa affiliated with open-ocean and marine systems (e.g., Oceanospirillales, Rhodospirillales, and Rhodobacterales). These new bacterial groups included putative hydrocarbon degraders, similar to those identified near the oil plume offshore. Shifts in the microbial community composition strongly correlated to more poorly sorted sediment and grain size distributional changes. Natural oceanographic processes could not account for the disrupted sediment, especially from the backshore well above the maximum high-tide levels recorded at these sites. Sand washing and tilling occurred on both open beaches from August through at least December 2010, which were mechanisms that could replace fecal indicator groups with open-ocean groups. Consequently, remediation efforts meant to return beaches to pre-spill compositions caused a regime shift that may have added potential ecosystem function, like hydrocarbon degradation, to the sediment. Future research will need to assess the persistence and impact of the newly formed microbial communities to the overall sandy beach ecosystems.

Dataset Information

Microbial Functional Responses in Marine Biofilms Exposed to Deepwater Horizon Spill Contaminants.

Publications

Microbial Functional Responses in Marine Biofilms Exposed to <i>Deepwater Horizon</i> Spill Contaminants.

Similar Datasets

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