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Arctic biodegradation and bioremediation strategies
Future predictions for the Arctic Ocean indicate an increase in commercial shipping traffic, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the risk of oil spills.
Focus 1: Development of potential bioremediation strategies to manage oil spills in Northern waters and on the coasts of Northern Canada.
Arctic's Hidden Hydrocarbon Degradation Microbes: Investigating the Effects of Hydrocarbon Contamination, Biostimulation, and a Surface Washing Agent on Microbial Communities and Hydrocarbon Biodegradation Pathways in High-Arctic Beaches.
Chen et al., 2024, Environmental Microbiome
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Main goal: Investigating the effects of hydrocarbon contamination, biostimulation, and a surface washing agent on microbial communities and hydrocarbon biodegradation pathways in high-Arctic beaches.
Results: suggest that nutrient addition has restricted efficacy in facilitating the biodegradation of Arctic beach sediments, despite initial aliphatic hydrocarbon promotion. Conversely, the use of a surface washing agent shows promise as a potential bioremediation strategy. Additionally, through metagenomic analysis, we identified highly efficient, unconventional microorganisms capable of degrading hydrocarbons, including those from the Halioglobus and Acidimicrobiales genera.
Characterization of Hydrocarbon Degraders from Northwest Passage Beach Sediments and Assessment of their Ability for Bioremediation.
Lirette et al., 2024, Can. J. Microbiol.
Main goal: Enhance current understanding of hydrocarbon biodegradation on NWP beaches by applying a culture-based methodology to identify degraders within the community. The findings were corroborated through genetic and chemical analyses to reinforce their validity.
Results: Characterization and genomic analyses of 22 hydrocarbon-biodegradative bacterial isolates revealed that they contained a diverse range of key alkane and aromatic hydrocarbon-degradative genes, as well as cold and salt tolerance genes indicating they are highly adapted to the extreme Arctic environment. Our results demonstrate that two isolates (Rhodococcus sp. R1B_2T and Pseudarthrobacter sp. R2D_1T) possess complete degradation pathways and can grow on alkane and aromatic components of ULSFO under Arctic conditions.
Focus 2: Evaluating the natural attenuation on hydrocarbon-contaminated beaches of the Canadian High Arctic.
High Arctic Seawater and Coastal Soil Microbiome Co-occurrence and Composition Structure and Their Potential Hydrocarbon Biodegradation.
Freyria et al., 2024, ISME Comm.
Goal: We identified hydrocarbon degradation genes and their microbial populations in a presumably oil-free ecosystem relevant to many coastal marine microbiomes, also showing the presence of several hydrocarbon degradation marker genes in microalgae and algal viruses.
Results: suggest that horizontal gene transfer of hydrocarbon genes may play a pivotal role in the evolution of polar coastal bacterial and phytoplankton populations, contributing to the adaptation of microbial communities to environmental contaminants and enables lineages previously incapable of natural attenuation to acquire hydrocarbon degradation capability.
Metagenomic Survey Reveals Hydrocarbon Biodegradation Potential of Canadian High Arctic Beaches.
Gongora et al., 2024, Environ. Microbiome
Goal: Understand the hydrocarbon biodegradation potential of Northwest Passage (NWP) beach sediments from both natural and human-impacted shorelines as well as the overall community composition to provide an overview of scenarios where bioremediation could be used in the case of a spill in one of these types of beaches
Results: Our metagenomic analyses detected the genetic potential for hydrocarbon biodegradation in these NWP shoreline microbiomes. Alkane metabolism was the most prevalent type of hydrocarbon degradation observed in these tidal beach ecosystems. Our results indicate that bioremediation could be used as a cleanup strategy, but the addition of growth stimulants, such as N and P fertilizers, should be considered to help bacteria overcome the oligotrophic nature of NWP shorelines.
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