Contaminants in freezing ground and associated ecosystems: key issues at the beginning of the new millennium

Snape, Ian; Riddle, Martin J.; Filler, Dennis M.; Williams, Peter J.

doi:10.1017/s003224740300322x

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…For example, at least five accidents in Usinsk in Northern Russia have taken place since 1986, causing very serious adverse environmental impacts [3]. Moreover, the same levels of contamination can heavily damage the cold environments, as the cold ecosystems have adapted to harsh conditions in ways that make them more fragile [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pyrosequencing Investigation into the Bacterial Community in Permafrost Soils along the China-Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP)

Yang

Jin

et al. 2012

PLoS ONE

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The China-Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP) goes through 441 km permafrost soils in northeastern China. The bioremediation in case of oil spills is a major concern. So far, little is known about the indigenous bacteria inhabiting in the permafrost soils along the pipeline. A pilot 454 pyrosequencing analysis on the communities from four selected sites which possess high environment risk along the CRCOP is herein presented. The results reveal an immense bacterial diversity than previously anticipated. A total of 14448 OTUs with 84834 reads are identified, which could be assigned into 39 different phyla, and 223 families or 386 genera. Only five phyla sustain a mean OTU abundance more than 5% in all the samples, but they altogether account for 85.08% of total reads. Proteobacteria accounts for 41.65% of the total OTUs or 45% of the reads across all samples, and its proportion generally increases with soil depth, but OTUs numerically decline. Among Proteobacteria, the abundance of Beta-, Alpha-, Delta- and Gamma- subdivisions average to 38.7% (2331 OTUs), 37.5% (2257 OTUs), 10.35% (616 OTUs), and 6.21% (374 OTUs), respectively. Acidobacteria (esp. Acidobacteriaceae), Actinobacteria (esp. Intrasporangiaceae), Bacteroidetes (esp. Sphingobacteria and Flavobacteria) and Chloroflexi (esp. Anaerolineaceae) are also very common, accounting for 8.56% (1237 OTUs), 7.86% (1136 OTUs); 7.35% (1063 OTUs) and 8.27% (1195 OTUs) of total libraries, respectively. The ordination analysis indicates that bacteria communities in the upper active layer cluster together (similar), while bacterial consortia from the lower active layer and permafrost table scatter (less similar). The abundance of Rhodococcus (12 OTUs), Pseudomonas (71 OTUs) and Sphingomonas (87 OTUs) is even less (<0.01%). This effort to profile the background diversity may set the first stage for better evaluating the bacterial dynamics in response to accidental oil spills.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pyrosequencing Investigation into the Bacterial Community in Permafrost Soils along the China-Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP)

Yang

Jin

et al. 2012

PLoS ONE

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“…After a tumultuous history of exploitation from sealers, the island was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1933 and has been operating as permanent Australian Antarctic research station since 1948. The continual human occupation has led to the presence of contaminants in the air, sea and soil, with petroleum hydrocarbons identified as one of the most prolific24. Three major petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated sites have been identified on Macquarie Island surrounding the fuel storage and power generation facilities (Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Novel Culturing Techniques Select for Heterotrophs and Hydrocarbon Degraders in a Subantarctic Soil

Dorst

Hince

Snape

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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The soil substrate membrane system (SSMS) is a novel micro-culturing technique targeted at terrestrial soil systems. We applied the SSMS to pristine and diesel fuel spiked polar soils, along with traditional solid media culturing and culture independent 454 tag pyrosequencing to elucidate the effects of diesel fuel on the soil community. The SSMS enriched for up to 76% of the total soil diversity within high diesel fuel concentration soils, in contrast to only 26% of the total diversity for the control soils. The majority of organisms originally recovered with the SSMS were lost in the transfer to solid media, with all 300 isolates belonging to Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria or Bacteroidetes, the four phyla most frequently associated with soil culturing efforts. The soils spiked with high diesel fuel concentrations exhibited reduced species richness, diversity and a selection towards heterotrophs and hydrocarbon degraders in comparison to the control soils. Based on these observations and the unusually high level of overlap in microbial taxa observed between methods, we suggest the SSMS holds potential to exploit hydrocarbon degraders and other targets within simplified bacterial systems, yet is inadequate for soil ecology and ecotoxicology studies where identifying rare oligotrophic species is paramount.

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“…As a result, ecotoxicological data generated in temperate regions are not suitable for application to polar soils, due both to different environmental conditions and unique adaptations of native biota (Snape et al ). Currently, there is a lack of data on the toxicity of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in Antarctic soils for both weathered and fresh fuels (Snape et al ; Aislabie et al ; Delille et al ; Atlas ; Harvey et al ). Identification of useful indicators of soil health in Antarctic soils, along with toxicity assessments of native flora and fauna will contribute to the development of remediation guidelines that may be incorporated into fuel spill site management in Antarctica.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of microbial gene abundance in the development of fuel remediation guidelines in polar soils

Richardson

King

Powell

2014

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Terrestrial fuel spills in Antarctica commonly occur on ice-free land around research stations as the result of human activities. Successful spill clean-ups require appropriate targets that confirm contaminated sites are no longer likely to pose environmental risk following remediation. These targets are based on knowledge of the impacts of contaminants on the soil ecosystem and on the response of native biota to contamination. Our work examined the response of soil microbial communities to fuel contamination by measuring the abundance of genes involved in critical soil processes, and assessed the use of this approach as an indicator of soil health in the presence of weathered and fresh fuels. Uncontaminated and contaminated soils were collected from the site of remediation treatment of an aged diesel spill at Casey Station, East Antarctica in December 2012. Uncontaminated soil was spiked with fresh Special Antarctic Blend (SAB) diesel to determine the response of the genes to fresh fuel. Partly remediated soil containing weathered SAB diesel was diluted with uncontaminated soil to simulate a range of concentrations of weathered fuel and used to determine the response of the genes to aged fuel. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to measure the abundance of rpoB, alkB, cat23, and nosZ in soils containing SAB diesel. Differences were observed between the abundance of genes in control soils versus soils containing weathered and fresh fuels. Typical dose-response curves were generated for genes in response to the presence of fresh fuel. In contrast, the response of these genes to the range of weathered fuel appeared to be due to dilution, rather than to the effect of the fuel on the microbial community. Changes in microbial genes in response to fresh contamination have potential as a sensitive measure of soil health and for assessments of the effect of fuel spills in polar soils. This will contribute to the development of remediation guidelines to assist in management decisions on when the impact of a fuel spill warrants remediation.

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Contaminants in freezing ground and associated ecosystems: key issues at the beginning of the new millennium

Cited by 30 publications

References 7 publications

Pyrosequencing Investigation into the Bacterial Community in Permafrost Soils along the China-Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP)

Pyrosequencing Investigation into the Bacterial Community in Permafrost Soils along the China-Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP)

Novel Culturing Techniques Select for Heterotrophs and Hydrocarbon Degraders in a Subantarctic Soil

The use of microbial gene abundance in the development of fuel remediation guidelines in polar soils

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