Microbes To The Rescue!
By: Juan Ramirez

Figure 1: Taken from https://www.mapleholistics.com/blog/natural-vs-synthetic-essential-oils/

            It has long been known that gas stations can affect the soil, and ultimately the ecosystem around them. Also, following the after-math of the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010 scientist came to the realization that microorganisms can be utilize as a tool for bioremediation. However, did you know that these microbes already existed in the soil surrounding gas stations and other crude oil dumps? Well a group of scientist found that an array of different petroleum degrading microbes inhabited the soil surrounding numerous gas stations in their area. These scientist isolated 20 different types of bacteria from the soil. What they found was remarkable. Nearly every microbe was able to thrive in a flask containing MBSM and 4% crude oil. Not only were they able to survive, but all they microbes that were tested displayed the ability to degrade the crude oil. Although some did substantially better than others, all degraded the oil. Two strains did stand out. Both RAM03 and RAM13 were able to degrade more than 90% of the crude oil. These results go to show that bioremediation is the future.



 Reference:

Abou-Shanab, R. A., Eraky, M., Haddad, A. M., Abdel-Gaffar, A. B., & Salem, A. M. (2016). Characterization of Crude Oil Degrading Bacteria Isolated from Contaminated Soils Surrounding Gas Stations. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 97(5), 684-688.