Spatial isolation and environmental factors drive distinct bacterial and archaeal communities in different types of petroleum reservoirs in China

Abstract

To investigate the spatial distribution of microbial communities and their drivers in petroleum reservoir environments, we performed pyrosequencing of microbial partial 16S rRNA, derived from 20 geographically separated water-flooding reservoirs, and two reservoirs that had not been flooded, in China. The results indicated that distinct underground microbial communities inhabited the different reservoirs. Compared with the bacteria, archaeal alpha-diversity was not strongly correlated with the environmental variables. The variation of the bacterial and archaeal community compositions was affected synthetically, by the mining patterns, spatial isolation, reservoir temperature, salinity and pH of the formation brine. The environmental factors explained 64.22% and 78.26% of the total variance for the bacterial and archaeal communities, respectively. Despite the diverse community compositions, shared populations (48 bacterial and 18 archaeal genera) were found and were dominant in most of the oilfields. Potential indigenous microorganisms, including Carboxydibrachium, Thermosinus, and Neptunomonas, were only detected in a reservoir that had not been flooded with water. This study indicates that: 1) the environmental variation drives distinct microbial communities in different reservoirs; 2) compared with the archaea, the bacterial communities were highly heterogeneous within and among the reservoirs; and 3) despite the community variation, some microorganisms are dominant in multiple petroleum reservoirs.

Stable and Variable Parts of Microbial Community in Siberian Deep Subsurface Thermal Aquifer System Revealed in a Long-Term Monitoring Study

“…Overall, the microbial community diversity and richness, characterized by Shannon and equitability indices, is rather low (Table 4) in comparison with values reported for subsurface sediments and oil reservoirs, where Shannon indexes from 2 to 4 are typically reported (for example, Biddle et al, 2011; Gao et al, 2016). This is especially evident for the archaeal part of the community characterized by the presence of just a few species.…”

Vertical stratification of bacteria and the chemical compounds in crude oil-contaminated soil layers of the semi-deserted Dzungharian Basin

“…When the microbes encounter favorable conditions and outcompete other potential colonizers, they multiply and gradually establish themselves within local niches. Thus, the establishment of this relationship relies on the interaction between the microbe and its environmental partners [ 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Generally, the bacterial communities in these petroleum-contaminated soils had three potential sources: 1) bacteria indigenous to the soil itself, which might be traced to ancient environments; 2) invasion by bacterial communities from adjacent areas by precipitation of sand transfer by wind, water and rain, or human and animal activity; and 3) indigenous microorganisms of crude oil [ 28 ].…”

Microbial potential for carbon and nutrient cycling in a geogenic supercritical carbon dioxide reservoir

“…for organic electron donors has been shown to reduce rates of sulfide production and associated souring in oil fields (Hubert and Voordouw, 2007). Similarly, the two taxa that make up the majority of the Well 10 assemblage, Rhizobium and Sulfurospirillum, are ubiquitous in petroleum reservoir formation waters (Zhang et al, 2012;Gao et al, 2016) and are also widely associated with high arsenic environments (Lloyd and Oremland, 2006;Chang et al, 2010). The Well 10 assemblage may also represent a chemolithoautotrophic ecosystem based on CO 2 fixation fueled by sulfur oxidation by Rhizobium MD101 and carbon remineralization by Sulfurospirillum MD102.…”