Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria and the Bacterial Community Response in Gulf of Mexico Beach Sands Impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Open accessAbstract
A significant portion of oil from the recent Deepwater Horizon (DH) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was transported to the shoreline, where it may have severe ecological and economic consequences. The objectives of this study were (i) to identify and characterize predominant oil-degrading taxa that may be used as model hydrocarbon degraders or as microbial indicators of contamination and (ii) to characterize the in situ response of indigenous bacterial communities to oil contamination in beach ecosystems. This study was conducted at municipal Pensacola Beach, FL, where chemical analysis revealed weathered oil petroleum hydrocarbon (C 8 to C 40 ) concentrations ranging from 3.1 to 4,500 mg kg −1 in beach sands. A total of 24 bacterial strains from 14 genera were isolated from oiled beach sands and confirmed as oil-degrading microorganisms. Isolated bacterial strains were primarily Gammaproteobacteria , including representatives of genera with known oil degraders ( Alcanivora x, Marinobacter , Pseudomonas , and Acinetobacter ). Sequence libraries generated from oiled sands revealed phylotypes that showed high sequence identity (up to 99%) to rRNA gene sequences from the oil-degrading bacterial isolates. The abundance of bacterial SSU rRNA gene sequences was ∼10-fold higher in oiled (0.44 × 10 7 to 10.2 × 10 7 copies g −1 ) versus clean (0.024 × 10 7 to 1.4 × 10 7 copies g −1 ) sand. Community analysis revealed a distinct response to oil contamination, and SSU rRNA gene abundance derived from the genus Alcanivorax showed the largest increase in relative abundance in contaminated samples. We conclude that oil contamination from the DH spill had a profound impact on the abundance and community composition of indigenous bacteria in Gulf beach sands, and our evidence points to members of the Gammaproteobacteria ( Alcanivorax , Marinobacter ) and Alphaproteobacteria ( Rhodobacteraceae ) as key players in oil degradation there.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Following a marine oil spill, there exists a substantial rise in the prevalence of Alcanivorax spp., which metabolizes straight-chain and branched alkanes, succeeded by Cycloclasticus spp., which breakdown PAHs.
“Nonetheless, certain usual patterns exist; most prominently, there exists a substantial rise in the prevalence of Alcanivorax spp., which metabolizes straight-chain and branched alkanes [188], succeeded by Cycloclasticus spp., which breakdown PAHs [251].”
From Harnessing bacterial consortia for effective bioremediation: targeted removal of heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and persistent pollutants (2025) · cites this paper as [188]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 9
- [5]5. Berthe-Corti, L., and M. Nachtkamp. 2010. Bacterial communities in hydrocarbon-contaminated marine coastal environments, p. 2350-2357. In K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. SpringerVerlag, Berlin, Germany.
- [23]23. Greer, C. W. 2010. Bacterial diversity in hydrocarbon-polluted rivers, estuaries, and sediments, p. 2330-2337. In K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
- [24]24. Grimes, D. J., et al. 2009. What genomic sequence information has revealed about vibrio ecology in the ocean-a review. Microb. Ecol. 58: 447-460.
- [41]41. Lane, D. J. 1991. 16S/23S rRNA sequencing, p. 115-147. In E. Stackebrandt and M. Goodfellow (ed.), Nucleic acid techniques. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, United Kingdom.
- [50]50. Martins dos Santos, V., J. Sabirova, K. N. Timmis, and M. M. Yakimov. 2010. Alcanivorax borkumensis , p. 1266-1285. In K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
- [59]59. Prince, R. C. 2010. Bioremediation of marine oil spills, p. 2618-2626. In K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
- [68]68. Singh, A. K., et al. How specific microbial communities benefit intertidal beach sediments undergoing bioremediation: dynamics of Alcanivorax spp. in oil-contaminated intertidal beach sediments undergoing bioremediation, p. 199-209. In C. Whitby and T. L. Skovhus (ed.), Applied microbiology and molecular biology in oilfield systems. Springer Science + Business Media, New York, NY.
- [73]73. Widdel, F. 2010. Cultivation of anaerobic microorganisms with hydrocarbons as growth substrates, p. 3788-3797. In K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
- [74]74. Widdel, F., and F. Bak. 1992. Gram-negative mesophilic sulfate-reducing bacteria, p. 3352-3378. In A. Balows et al. (ed.), The prokaryotes, 2nd ed., vol. 4. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Qattan, S. Y. A. (2025) · Environmental Sciences Europe · doi:10.1186/s12302-025-01103-y · Cited by 109 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kostka, J. E., Prakash, O., Overholt, W. A., Green, S. J., Freyer, G., Canion, A., Delgardio, J., Norton, N., Hazen, T. C., & Huettel, M.
- Affiliations
- Florida State University (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kostka, Joel E.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Applied and Environmental Microbiology
- Publisher
- American Society for Microbiology
- Published
- 2011-11-15
- Volume
- 77
- Issue
- 22
- Pages
- 7962-7974
- ISSN
- 0099-2240 (ISSN-L)
- 1098-5336
- PMC
- PMC3208977
- OpenAlex
- W2042838051
- Cited by
- 875
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 75 · 2020: 74 · 2019: 85 · 2018: 97 · 2017: 72 · 2016: 72 · 2015: 79 · 2014: 60 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 38.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Applied and Environmental Microbiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1057417, 1044939)
- Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO 4710-1101-00-1)
- Northern Gulf Institute (NG1 191001-306811-03)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Microbial bioremediation and biosurfactants
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Oil Spill Detection and Mitigation
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Keywords
- Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oil-degrading bacteria, beach sand, petroleum hydrocarbons, bacterial community composition, Alcanivorax, Marinobacter, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Gammaproteobacteria, Rhodobacteraceae, oil weathering
- MeSH terms
- Bacteria, Biotransformation, DNA, Bacterial, DNA, Ribosomal, Florida, Hydrocarbons, Phylogeny, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Soil Microbiology, Cluster Analysis, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Biodiversity, Petroleum Pollution, Gulf of America
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
