Differential Responses of Bacterial Communities Inhabiting Pristine and Industrially Polluted Sediment from Oil Spills along Dalian, China

Abstract

Guo, J.; Sun, Y.; Mi, D., and Qin, C., 2020. Differential responses of bacterial communities inhabiting pristine and industrially polluted sediment from oil spills along Dalian, China. Journal of Coastal Research, 36(2), 218–227. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Several studies have compared bacterial communities between polluted and unpolluted areas, but few have investigated the responses of bacterial communities in different habitat types to oil spills. This work monitored the responses of bacterial communities inhabiting pristine area (PA) and chronically industrially polluted (CI) sites in Dalian, China, and compared them with background samples at other sites through next-generation sequencing. The PA site had a significantly lower Shannon index than the CI site before the oil spill, but it significantly increased after the oil spill. The community structure also dramatically changed after the oil spill, with the abundance of several classes significantly increasing within 3 weeks, although these differed between the PA and the CI sites. By two calculation strategies, 15 oil-induced genera were identified, most of which have been proved in other studies. However, these genera had inconsistent responses depending on the background pollution level. Alcanivorax, Cycloclasticus, Erythrobacter, Glaciecola, Granulosicoccus, and Maribacter were the majorly induced taxa at the PA site, whereas Granulosicoccus and Maribacter were the predominantly induced taxa at the CI site after the oil spill. These findings will help develop niche-targeting bioremediation strategies for oil spills in different habitat types.