Exploration of marine bacterioplankton community assembly mechanisms during chemical dispersant and surfactant‐assisted oil biodegradation

Nikolova, C., Ijaz, U. Z. and Gutierrez, T. (2021) Exploration of marine bacterioplankton community assembly mechanisms during chemical dispersant and surfactant‐assisted oil biodegradation. Ecology and Evolution, 11(20), pp. 13862-13874. (doi: 10.1002/ece3.8091) (PMCID:PMC8525123)

Abstract

Assembly processes in marine microbial communities amended with crude oil and chemical dispersant are poorly understood and even more so when biosurfactants are used. We set up a microcosm experiment in which microbiome structure was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and six null models to better understand and quantify the mechanisms and patterns controlling the assembly of a marine crude oil degrading microbial community in the presence of chemical dispersant or rhamnolipid biosurfactant. Although each null model quantifies different aspects of the community assembly, there was a general agreement that neither purely stochastic nor purely deterministic processes dominated the microbial communities, and their influence was variable over time. Determinism was dominant in the early phase of incubation, while stochasticity was prevalent in the middle and late stages. There was faster recruitment of phylogenetically distant species in the dispersant‐amended community compared to oil‐only or rhamnolipid‐amended communities. This analysis provides important insights of how chemical dispersants and rhamnolipid influence microbial communities' dynamics and identified which groups may be excluded—an important consideration for biodegradation process and oil spill response.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Community assembly, crude oil, deterministic, dispersant, marine, microbial, null model.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Ijaz, Dr Umer

Creator Roles

Ijaz, U. Z.: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Nikolova, C., Ijaz, U. Z., and Gutierrez, T.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Infrastructure and Environment
• Journal Name: Ecology and Evolution
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 2045-7758
• ISSN (Online): 2045-7758
• Published Online: 10 September 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Ecology and Evolution 11(20): 13862-13874
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
170256		Understanding microbial community through in situ environmental 'omic data synthesis	Umer Zeeshan Ijaz	Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)	NE/L011956/1	ENG - Infrastructure & Environment