Methanotrophs at Work in the Gulf

From Robert Krulwich, National Public Radio

Last June, oceanography professor John Kessler of Texas A&M University visited BP's Gulf of Mexico accident site and found methane concentrations below the surface that were, "on average about 100,000 times greater than background." He told Living On Earth, "We even saw a few locations that were starting to push the limits of a million times above background."

Last August, Kessler sailed out on the NOAA ship Pisces to check on the gas plume. Three months had passed. 120 days. He looked. He looked again. The gas was gone.

Last month he published a paper in Science that points the finger at hard-working methanotrophs acting as "teeny janitors."

Kessler et al's abstract:

Methane was the most abundant hydrocarbon released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond relevancy to this anthropogenic event, this methane release simulates a rapid and relatively short-term natural release from hydrates into deepwater. Based on methane and oxygen distributions measured at 207 stations throughout the affected region, we find that within ~120 days from the onset of release ~3.0 × 10¹⁰ to 3.9 × 10¹⁰ moles of oxygen were respired, primarily by methanotrophs, and left behind a residual microbial community containing methanotrophic bacteria. We suggest that a vigorous deepwater bacterial bloom respired nearly all the released methane within this time and that by analogy, large-scale releases of methane from hydrate in the deep ocean are likely to be met by a similarly rapid methanotrophic response.

Read the complete story on NPR.

Battelle Bioremediation and Sustainable Environmental Technologies Symposium - Call for Abstracts

Abstracts are requested for the Battelle Bioremediation and Sustainable Environmental Technologies Symposium, which will be held in Reno, Nevada, June 27-30, 2011.  Abstracts are due by November 15, 2010.

This conference will incorporate topics beyond those addressed by its predecessor, the In Situ and On-Site Bioremediation Symposium. The Symposium’s new name and expanded scope reflect new directions in environmental research and application.  Although bioremediation will continue to be a core area, the Symposium program also will cover sustainable practices in remediation, production, and other human activities.

To help support and encourage student participation, there will be a student paper competition, as well as several new features that will aid students in career planning.  SURF is a proud sponsor of the student paper competition, which will award $1,500 to the winner to defray travel costs.  Student papers are due by December 15, 2010.

Microbe Eating Dispersed Oil in Gulf

In an article published in Science, Terry C. Hazen, the chief microbiologist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reports that oil-eating bacteria have largely consumed the deep-sea plume of dispersed oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico.  Many feared the dispersed plume would devastate the marine ecology in the gulf because many oil-eating bacteria consume oxygen as well as hydrocarbons - a process that could produce "dead zones". But Hazen and his lab colleagues report that the microbes devour the microscopic droplets with far less depletion of oxygen than other oil-eating bacteria.

Read the complete article from David Perlman, the San Francisco Chronicle Science Editor, here. The abstract follows below. 

Deep-Sea Oil Plume Enriches Indigenous Oil-Degrading Bacteria
Science, Hazen et al., August 24, 2010 

The biological effects and expected fate of the vast amount of oil in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon blowout are unknown due to the depth and magnitude of this event. Here, we report that the dispersed hydrocarbon plume stimulated deep-sea indigenous -proteobacteria that are closely related to known petroleum-degraders. Hydrocarbon-degrading genes coincided with the concentration of various oil contaminants. Changes in hydrocarbon composition with distance from the source and incubation experiments with environmental isolates demonstrate faster-than-expected hydrocarbon biodegradation rates at 5°C. Based on these results, the potential exists for intrinsic bioremediation of the oil plume in the deep-water column without substantial oxygen drawdown.

Access the abstract and article via ScienceXpress.