Rare microbes helped counter the effects of the Deepwater Horizon accident!

By John Bojanski

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil well accident pumped over 200 million gallons of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico! This oil and gas created a plume, a contaminated column of water found within a larger body of water. Oil and gas are made up of hydrocarbons, so it is important to understand which microbial populations can sustain the conditions of salt water and are able to degrade hydrocarbons. Through samples of the contaminated water at the sites of the plume, researchers found that there was an incredible diversity of rare taxa associated with Cycloclasticus, Colwellia, and Oceanospirillaceae. Researchers also noted that these microbial populations increased throughout the duration of the DWH incident to amounts not seen at natural hydrocarbon levels! These microbial populations could be useful in bioremediation of future incidents involving large volumes of hydrocarbon pollution in a liquid medium such as oceans, lakes, and rivers.

Cole C. (2010). Los Angeles Times

This image from Cole (2010) illustrates the impact that the Deepwater Horizon incident had on the Gulf of Mexico.

Original Article: Kleindienst S, Grim S, Sogin M, Bracco A, Crespo-Medina M, Joye SB. (2015). Diverse, rare microbial taxa responded to the Deepwater Horizon deep-sea hydrocarbon plume. ISME Journal, doi:10.1038/ismej.2015.121.