{"379021":{"#nid":"379021","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Study details impact of Deepwater Horizon oil spill on beach microbial communities","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill first began washing ashore on Pensacola Municipal Beach in June 2010, populations of sensitive microorganisms, including those that capture sunlight or fix nitrogen from the air, began to decline. At the same time, organisms able to digest light components of the oil began to multiply, starting the process of converting the pollutant to carbon dioxide and biomass.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce the lightest fractions of the oil had been consumed, the organisms that had been digesting those compounds declined, replaced by others able to chew up the remaining heavier materials. Ultimately, a year after the spill, the oil had mostly disappeared and microbial populations buried in the beach sands looked much like they had before the spill, though there were as-yet unexplained differences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u0027s the scenario observed by scientists who have studied the oil\u2019s impact on the complex microbial communities \u2013 which contain hundreds of single-celled organisms \u2013 on this one Gulf Coast beach. Using advanced genomic identification techniques, they saw a succession of organisms and identified population changes in specific organisms that marked the progress of the bioremediation. They also identified the specific genes contained in the oil-eating microbes and the enzymes they used at different stages of the process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research, reported online this week in \u003Cem\u003EThe ISME Journal\u003C\/em\u003E, could help scientists better understand the microbial succession process that results from such environmental perturbations, and perhaps lay the groundwork for research aimed at accelerating bioremediation. The project represents a collaboration between professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Florida State University: Kostas Konstantinidis from the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Joel Kostka from the Georgia Tech School of Biology, and Markus Huettel, professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Florida State.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research was supported by the National Science Foundation, and by the BP\/Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to the Deep-C Consortium.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe observed the succession of organisms whose populations rose and fell as the degradation of the oil proceeded,\u201d said Konstantinidis. \u201cWe also identified the indicator organisms that show the ecosystem\u2019s response at different stages in the process. Knowing these indicators could help those who must manage these kinds of spills in the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOil began flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig in mid-April of 2010, but did not reach the Pensacola Municipal Beach until June 22. That allowed time for scientists from Georgia Tech and Florida State University to obtain samples of beach microorganism communities well before the oil began arriving.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMuch of the oil reaching the beaches was cleaned up mechanically, though some became buried in the sand. Digging trenches in the beach, Huettel from Florida State took samples at regular intervals for one year after the oil came ashore, and quantified the petroleum hydrocarbon compounds present in the beach sand.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing advanced meta-genomics technology, which studies the entire community, members of the team from Georgia Tech determined the relative abundances of certain organisms and how they changed over time, providing a clear view of the succession process. As many as ten species of microbes participated at each stage of the bioremediation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat is really special about this study is that we provide a robust meta-genomic time series that shows how shifts or changes in microbial populations closely paralleled the chemical evolution of the petroleum hydrocarbons,\u201d said Kostka. Added Konstantinidis: \u201cWe have identified which organisms and which genes are important at every stage of the biodegradation process on the beaches.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBeach communities contain hundreds of different microbes, and as many as 20 percent of them responded to the oil, Konstantinidis said. Those organisms for which the oil was toxic declined dramatically when the oil began reaching the beaches, but had mostly returned a year later.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen we looked at the microbial communities a year after the spill and compared them to what we saw before the spill, we saw differences, but the communities were very similar to what we saw before the oil arrived,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could tell confidently that the system had recovered, but it was not exactly the same community or same state. That\u2019s something we\u2019d like to study further and examine on other beaches.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOther researchers have evaluated the fate of oil that remained in the Gulf waters.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKonstantinidis said it\u2019s likely the oil washing up on the beaches had significantly different degradation kinetics than the oil that remained in the water columns. Oil containing lighter fractions would be easier to digest by the microbes that normally exist as part of beach communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers had expected to see the oil favoring the growth of microbes specific to particular parts of the oil degradation process. While the researchers saw dramatic changes in the communities over time, they saw that \u201cgeneralist\u201d microbes \u2013 those that were the most flexible metabolically \u2013 were most successful in expanding their populations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese generalist microbes are always around on the beaches or in the water, so you will always have them to break down oil spills,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn future work, the team would like to study how key ecosystem services like nutrient cycling are directly impacted by microbial community changes from oiling as well as the factors that limit the growth of biodegrading organisms. Important controls for biodegradation include oxygen levels, available nutrients and even competing microbes. If these factors are better understood, the process of digesting oil from spills might be accelerated.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt took almost a year for the oil to disappear,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cWe want to know what are limiting factors for the process that might be addressed. These microbes can take a long time, so if we can figure out how to make the process faster, it would be very helpful.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation award numbers 1241046, OCE-1057417 and OCE-1044939, an NSF graduate research fellowship to Will Overholt, and by grant SA-12-12, GoMRI-008 from the BP\/Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to the Deep-C Consortium. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the sponsoring organizations.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Rodrigues-R, Luis M., et al., \u201cMicrobial community successional patterns in beach sands impacted by the Deepwater Horizons oil spill,\u201d (The ISME Journal, 2015).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.isral@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.isral@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers studying the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on communities of beach microbes saw a succession of organisms and identified population changes in specific organisms that marked the progress of the oil\u0027s breakdown.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have studied the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on communities of beach microbes."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2015-02-17 11:34:39","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:42","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-02-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-02-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"379001":{"id":"379001","type":"image","title":"Sampling Microbial Communities in Beach Sand","body":null,"created":"1449246214","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:23:34","changed":"1475894342","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:02","alt":"Sampling Microbial Communities in Beach Sand","file":{"fid":"75228","name":"microbe-sampling2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbe-sampling2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbe-sampling2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1581751,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbe-sampling2.jpg?itok=X4WrqgUJ"}},"379011":{"id":"379011","type":"image","title":"Sampling Microbial Communities in Beach Sand2","body":null,"created":"1449246214","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:23:34","changed":"1475894388","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:48","alt":"Sampling Microbial Communities in Beach Sand2","file":{"fid":"75229","name":"microbe-sampling5135.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbe-sampling5135.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbe-sampling5135.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1578518,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbe-sampling5135.jpg?itok=1qMwi2Mc"}}},"media_ids":["379001","379011"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"12159","name":"Deepwater Horizon"},{"id":"1896","name":"Genomics"},{"id":"118921","name":"meta-genomics"},{"id":"7078","name":"microbe"},{"id":"51281","name":"microbial community"},{"id":"10123","name":"Oil spill"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}