The Roles of Photooxidation and Biodegradation in Long-term Weathering of Crude and Heavy Fuel Oils

Prince, Roger C.; Garrett, Robert M.; Bare, R. E.; Grossman, Matthew J.; Townsend, Todd; Suflita, Joseph M.; Lee, Kenneth; Owens, Edward H.; Sergy, Gary A.; Braddock, Joan F.; Lindstrom, Jon E.; Lessard, Richard R.

doi:10.1016/s1353-2561(03)00017-3

Cited by 167 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…However, although microorganisms are known to regulate marsh biogeochemical reactions (6,23,24), predicting whether and how marsh microbial communities would respond to the DWH oil spill was a challenge because diversity had been understudied (8,16,25,26), and almost nothing was known about community functional redundancy that could enhance response and resistance (20,21,(27)(28)(29)(30). Initially, some DWH spill researchers proposed a swift microbial response (16,17) because microbes have the capacity to degrade constituent carbon compounds in oil (31)(32)(33)(34)(35) and earlier nutrient enrichment, metal exposure, and oiling experiments provided evidence that marsh communities could withstand low levels of disturbance from an oil spill (25,36). Short-duration studies based on research conducted during one sampling time or from Ͻ6 to 9 months of sampling events in 2010 and 2011 confirmed that the relative abundances and species richness for bacterial communities exposed to weathered oil residues changed through time and recognized a greater diversity among known hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria as the amount of petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations increased (37)(38)(39)(40).…”

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confidence: 99%

Salt Marsh Bacterial Communities before and after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Engel

Liu

Paterson

et al. 2017

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Coastal salt marshes along the northern Gulf of Mexico shoreline received varied types and amounts of weathered oil residues after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. At the time, predicting how marsh bacterial communities would respond and/or recover to oiling and other environmental stressors was difficult because baseline information on community composition and dynamics was generally unavailable. Here, we evaluated marsh vegetation, physicochemistry, flooding frequency, hydrocarbon chemistry, and subtidal sediment bacterial communities from 16S rRNA gene surveys at 11 sites in southern Louisiana before the oil spill and resampled the same marshes three to four times over 38 months after the spill. Calculated hydrocarbon biomarker indices indicated that oil replaced native natural organic matter (NOM) originating from Spartina alterniflora and marine phytoplankton in the marshes between May 2010 and September 2010. At all the studied marshes, the major class-and order-level shifts among the phyla Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria occurred within these first 4 months, but another community shift occurred at the time of peak oiling in 2011. Two years later, hydrocarbon levels decreased and bacterial communities became more diverse, being dominated by Alphaproteobacteria (Rhizobiales), Chloroflexi (Dehalococcoidia), and Planctomycetes. Compositional changes through time could be explained by NOM source differences, perhaps due to vegetation changes, as well as marsh flooding and salinity excursions linked to freshwater diversions. These findings indicate that persistent hydrocarbon exposure alone did not explain long-term community shifts. IMPORTANCE Significant deterioration of coastal salt marshes in Louisiana has been linked to natural and anthropogenic stressors that can adversely affect how ecosystems function. Although microorganisms carry out and regulate most biogeochemical reactions, the diversity of bacterial communities in coastal marshes is poorly known, with limited investigation of potential changes in bacterial communities in response to various environmental stressors. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill provided an unprecedented opportunity to study the long-term effects of an oil spill on microbial systems in marshes. Compared to previous studies, the significance of our research stems from (i) a broader geographic range of studied marshes, (ii) an extended time frame of data collection that includes prespill conditions, (iii) a more accurate procedure using biomarker indices to understand oiling, and (iv) an examination of other potential stressors linked to in situ environmental changes, aside from oil exposure.

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confidence: 99%

Salt Marsh Bacterial Communities before and after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Engel

Liu

Paterson

et al. 2017

Appl Environ Microbiol

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“…All samples were frozen immediately and transported to the laboratory and kept in the refrigerators at À18°C before analysis. On the basis of previous results (Prince et al, 2003), we may regard the soil/oil mixtures (0-10 cm from the surface) as the highly weathered oil sample in this study. In addition, a fresh crude oil sample (S1-0, S2-0, S3-0) was systematically collected and stored frozen until analysis.…”

Section: Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical characterization of naturally weathered oil residues in the sediment from Yellow River Delta, China

Wang

Gao

et al. 2011

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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“…The molecular fingerprints and parameters used to correlate oil with its source based on the gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis are strongly modify by biodegradation (Prince et al 2002(Prince et al , 2003Wang and Fingas 2003). The effects on the molecular composition of petroleum are reasonably well established (see a review by Peters et al 2005 and references therein).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is very important to understand the relationship between the biodegradation processes and the composition changes of oils. Up to now, the effects of biodegradation on oils have been thoroughly documented (Bost et al 2001;Prince et al 2002Prince et al , 2003Béhar et al 2006;Bao and Zhu 2008). However, little work has been done about the evaluation of conventional diagnostic ratio for such representative biomarkers in the biodegraded oils for oil spill identification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the diagnostic ratios for the identification of spilled oils after biodegradation

et al. 2012

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Biodegradation, one of the most important weathering processes, alters the composition of spilled oil, making it difficult to identify the source of the release and to monitor its fate in the environment. A laboratory experiment was conducted to simulate oil spill weathering process of microbial degradation to investigate compositional changes in a range of source-and weatheringdependent molecular parameters in oil residues, and the conventional diagnostic ratios for oil spill identification were also evaluated. The conventional diagnostic ratios of n-alkane displayed obvious changes after biodegradation, especially for Pr/n-C 17 and Ph/n-C 18 with relative standard deviation more than 118.84 %, which suggests they are invalid for oil source identification of the middle-serious spill. Many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are more resistant to biodegradation process than their saturated hydrocarbon counterparts, thus making PAHs to be one of the most valuable fingerprinting classes of hydrocarbons for oil identification. Biomarker ratios of hopanes and steranes were also useful for source identification even after moderate biodegradation, and the diagnostic ratios from them could be used in tracking origin and sources of hydrocarbon pollution. Finally, the carbon isotopic type curve may provide another diagnostic means for correlation and differentiation of spilled oils, and be particularly valuable for lighter refined products or severely biodegraded oils, the source of which may be difficult to identify by routine biomarker techniques.

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The Roles of Photooxidation and Biodegradation in Long-term Weathering of Crude and Heavy Fuel Oils

Cited by 167 publications

References 41 publications

Salt Marsh Bacterial Communities before and after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Salt Marsh Bacterial Communities before and after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Chemical characterization of naturally weathered oil residues in the sediment from Yellow River Delta, China

Evaluation of the diagnostic ratios for the identification of spilled oils after biodegradation

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