Microbial Community Structure Shift During Bioremediation of Petroleum Contaminated Soil Using High Throughput Sequencing

Abstract

The shift in microbial community structure during the bioremediation of oil-polluted soil was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing. The results demonstrated obvious changes in the soil microbial community structure and diversity during bioremediation. The species richness and evenness of the microbial community decreased substantially due to the bioaugmentation treatment. Proteobacteria became the predominant phylum, with a relative increase in abundance from 37.44% to 87.44%. Pseudomonas was the most dominant genus, which increased in abundance from 2.99% to 76.37%. In the biostimulation treated soil, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria decreased from 37.44% to 10.90%, while the phylum Firmicutes increased from 9.16% to 35.32%. At the genus level, the relative abundances of Exiguobacterium and Promicromonospora decreased from 8.49% and 18.96% to 2.19% and 14.97%, respectively. Nocardioides and Bacillus became the dominant genera and increased from 5.56% and 0.29% to 28.95% and 22.70%, respectively. The results indicated that bioaugmentation substantially influenced the soil microbial diversity and community structure. Additionally, the biostimulation treatment maintained the balance in the soil microbial community structure. The stabilization of bacteria community structure is beneficial to petroleum biodegradation in the soil.