Systematic degradation process of petroleum hydrocarbons by an integrated bacterial consortium under bottom seawater and surface seawater environments

ABSTRACT

Dealing with oil spills is urgent, and bioaugmentation is a low-cost and environmentally friendly method. However, little research has been done on the remediation effect of bioaugmentation in oil-polluted environments with bottom seawater microorganisms. This work constructed the bottom seawater (S) group and surface seawater environment (T) group to study the oil degradation ability and the microbial community successions tendency with the function of integrated bacterial consortium. After 50 days of bioaugmentation, the oil degradation rates of the S and T groups were 53.33% and 43.72%, which were 26.98% and 25.82% higher than that of natural restoration, respectively. Furthermore, the microbial community structure succeeded in the same direction under different environments after oil pollution and bioaugmentation, and the main classes were Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria. Precisely, Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus played the primary roles in oil degradation under two different initial environments, and they were mainly affected by natural restoration and bioaugmentation, respectively. This work can contribute to a better base for bioaugmentation strategy development in the bottom seawater environment.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Bioaugmentation
• bottom seawater
• oil degradation ability
• Alcanivorax
• Cycloclasticus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This study is financially supported by the scientific research fund project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 52070123], National Key Research and Development Project [grant number 2019YFC0408503], the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province [grant number ZR2020ME224], High-Quality Curriculum Construction Project of Graduate Education of Shandong University of Science and Technology, Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Young Innovative Talent Introduction and Cultivation Team [Wastewater treatment and resource innovation team].