AUTHOR=Lamendella Regina , Strutt Steven , Borglin Sharon E., Chakraborty Romy , Tas Neslihan , Mason Olivia U., Hultman Jenni , Prestat Emmanuel , Hazen Terry C., Jansson Janet TITLE=Assessment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impact on Gulf coast microbial communities JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=5 YEAR=2014 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00130 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2014.00130 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
One of the major environmental concerns of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the ecological impact of the oil that reached shorelines of the Gulf Coast. Here we investigated the impact of the oil on the microbial composition in beach samples collected in June 2010 along a heavily impacted shoreline near Grand Isle, Louisiana. Successional changes in the microbial community structure due to the oil contamination were determined by deep sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Metatranscriptomics was used to determine expression of functional genes involved in hydrocarbon degradation processes. In addition, potential hydrocarbon-degrading Bacteria were obtained in culture. The 16S data revealed that highly contaminated samples had higher abundances of