Rapid microbial respiration of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in offshore surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15547267 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bethanie R Edwards (0000-0001-9858-9834, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, corresponding author), Christopher M Reddy (0000-0002-7814-2071, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Richard Camilli (0000-0001-8049-4298, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Catherine A Carmichael (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Krista Longnecker (0000-0002-6850-2694, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Benjamin Van Mooy (0000-0002-2804-6508, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Benjamin A S Van Mooy |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 035301-035301 |
| Publication date | 2011-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/035301 |
| OpenAlex | W2021666544 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 34 |
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the largest oil spills in history, and the fate of this oil within the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem remains to be fully understood. The goal of this study—conducted in mid-June of 2010, approximately two months after the oil spill began—was to understand the key role that microbes would play in the degradation of the oil in the offshore oligotrophic surface waters near the Deepwater Horizon site. As the utilization of organic carbon by bacteria in the surface waters of the Gulf had been previously shown to be phosphorus limited, we hypothesized that bacteria would be unable to rapidly utilize the oil released from the Macondo well. Although phosphate was scarce throughout the sampling region and microbes exhibited enzymatic signs of phosphate stress within the oil slick, microbial respiration within the slick was enhanced by approximately a factor of five. An incubation experiment to determine hydrocarbon degradation rates confirmed that a large fraction of this enhanced respiration was supported by hydrocarbon degradation. Extrapolating our observations to the entire area of the slick suggests that microbes had the potential to degrade a large fraction of the oil as it arrived at the surface from the well. These observations decidedly refuted our hypothesis. However, a concomitant increase in microbial abundance or biomass was not observed in the slick, suggesting that microbial growth was nutrient limited; incubations amended with nutrients showed rapid increases in cell number and biomass, which supported this conclusion. Our study shows that the dynamic microbial community of the Gulf of Mexico supported remarkable rates of oil respiration, despite a dearth of dissolved nutrients
Bacteria · Biology · Biomass (ecology · Ecosystem · Hydrocarbon · Microbial biodegradation · Microorganism · Nutrient · Chemistry · Environmental Science · Marine and coastal ecosystems · Microbial bioremediation and biosurfactants · Oil Spill Detection and Mitigation · Ecology · Environmental Chemistry
Science in the aftermath
Polysaccharide hydrolysis in the presence of oil and dispersants
Microbial response to oil enrichment in Gulf of Mexico sediment measured using a novel long-term benthic lander system
Nutrient depletion as a proxy for microbial growth in Deepwater Horizon subsurface oil/gas plumes
Evolution of the optical properties of seawater influenced by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.36 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2019 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |