Distribution of dissolved iron and bacteria producing the photoactive siderophore, vibrioferrin, in waters off Southern California and Northern Baja.

Phytoplankton blooms can cause acute effects on marine ecosystems due either to their production of endogenous toxins or to their enormous biomass leading to major impacts on local economies and public health. Despite years of effort, the causes of these Harmful Algal Blooms are still not fully understood. Our hypothesis is that bacteria that produce photoactive siderophores may provide a bioavailable source of iron for phytoplankton which could in turn stimulate algal growth and support bloom dynamics. Here we correlate iron concentrations, phytoplankton cell counts, bacterial cell abundance, and copy numbers for a photoactive siderophore vibrioferrin biosynthesis gene in water samples taken from 2017 cruises in the Gulf of California, and the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northern Baja California as well as during a multiyear sampling at Scripps Pier in San Diego, CA. We find that bacteria producing the photoactive siderophore vibrioferrin, make up a surprisingly high percentage of total bacteria in Pacific/Gulf of California coastal waters (up to 9%). Vibroferrin's unique properties and the widespread prevalence of its bacterial producers suggest that it may contribute significantly to generating bioavailability of iron via photoredox reactions.

Microbial diversity in degraded and non-degraded petroleum samples and comparison across oil reservoirs at local and global scales.

Microorganisms have shown their ability to colonize extreme environments including deep subsurface petroleum reservoirs. Physicochemical parameters may vary greatly among petroleum reservoirs worldwide and so do the microbial communities inhabiting these different environments. The present work aimed at the characterization of the microbiota in biodegraded and non-degraded petroleum samples from three Brazilian reservoirs and the comparison of microbial community diversity across oil reservoirs at local and global scales using 16S rRNA clone libraries. The analysis of 620 16S rRNA bacterial and archaeal sequences obtained from Brazilian oil samples revealed 42 bacterial OTUs and 21 archaeal OTUs. The bacterial community from the degraded oil was more diverse than the non-degraded samples. Non-degraded oil samples were overwhelmingly dominated by gammaproteobacterial sequences with a predominance of the genera Marinobacter and Marinobacterium. Comparisons of microbial diversity among oil reservoirs worldwide suggested an apparent correlation of prokaryotic communities with reservoir temperature and depth and no influence of geographic distance among reservoirs. The detailed analysis of the phylogenetic diversity across reservoirs allowed us to define a core microbiome encompassing three bacterial classes (Gammaproteobacteria, Clostridia, and Bacteroidia) and one archaeal class (Methanomicrobia) ubiquitous in petroleum reservoirs and presumably owning the abilities to sustain life in these environments.

High sulfate reduction efficiency in a UASB using an alternative source of sulfidogenic sludge derived from hydrothermal vent sediments.

Sulfidogenesis in reactors is mostly achieved through adaptation of predominantly methanogenic granular sludge to sulfidogenesis. In this work, an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor operated under sulfate-reducing conditions was inoculated with hydrothermal vent sediments to carry out sulfate reduction using volatile fatty acids (VFAs) as substrate and chemical oxygen demand (COD)/SO4 (-2) ratios between 0.49 and 0.64. After a short period of adaptation, a robust non-granular sludge was capable of achieving high sulfate reduction efficiencies while avoiding competence with methanogens and toxicity to the microorganisms due to high sulfide concentration. The highest sulfide concentration (2,552 mg/L) was obtained with acetate/butyrate, and sulfate reduction efficiencies were up to 98 %. A mixture of acetate/butyrate, which produced a higher yielding of HS(-), was preferred over acetate/propionate/butyrate since the consumption of COD was minimized during the process. Sludge was analyzed, and some of the microorganisms identified in the sludge belong to the genera Desulfobacterium, Marinobacter, and Clostridium. The tolerance of the sludge to sulfide may be attributed to the syntrophy among these microorganisms, some of which have been reported to tolerate high concentrations of sulfide. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the analysis of the direct utilization of hydrothermal vent sediments as an alternate source of sludge for sulfate reduction under high sulfide concentrations.

Petroleum-influenced beach sediments of the Campeche Bank, Mexico: diversity and bacterial community structure assessment.

The bacterial diversity and community structure were surveyed in intertidal petroleum-influenced sediments of ≈ 100 km of a beach, in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The beach was divided in twenty sampling sites according to high, moderate and low petroleum influence. Densities of cultured heterotrophic (HAB) and hydrocarbon degrading bacteria (HDB) were highly variable in sediments, with little morphological assortment in colonies. PCR-RISA banding patterns differentiated distinct communities along the beach, and the bacterial diversity changed inversely to the degree of petroleum hydrocarbon influence: the higher TPH concentration, the lower genotype diversity. Seven DNA sequences (Genbank EF191394 -EF191396 and EF191398 -EF191401) were affiliated to uncultured members of Gemmatimonas, Acidobacterium, Desulfobacteraceae, Rubrobacterales, Actinobacterium and the Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria group; all the above taxa are known for having members with active roles in biogeochemical transformations. The remaining sequences (EF191388 - EF191393 and EF191397) affiliated to Pseudoalteromonas, and to oil-degrading genera such as Pseudomonas, Vibrio and Marinobacter, being the last one an obligate oil-degrading bacterium. An exchange of bacteria between the beach and the oil seep environment, and the potential cleaning-up role of bacteria at the southern Gulf of Mexico are discussed.

Characterization of novel extracellular protease produced by marine bacterial isolate from the Indian Ocean

Out of the vast pool of enzymes, proteolytic enzymes from microorganisms are the most widely used in different industries such as detergent, food, peptide production etc. Several marine microorganisms are known to produce proteases with commercially desirable characteristics. We have isolated nine different cultures from marine samples of the Indian Ocean. All of them were i) motile ii) rod shaped iii) non spore forming iv) catalase and amylase positive v) able to grow in presence of 10 percent NaCl. They produced acid from glucose, fructose and maltose and grew optimally at 30 0C temperature and pH 7.0-8.0. None of them could grow above 45 0C and below 15 0C. Only one of them (MBRI 7) exhibited extracellular protease activity on skim milk agar plates. Based on 16S rDNA sequencing, it belonged to the genus Marinobacter (98 percent sequence similarity, 1201 bp). The cell free extract was used to study effects of temperature and pH on protease activity. The optimum temperature and pH for activity were found to be 40 0C and 7.0 respectively. The crude enzyme was stable at temperature range of 30-80 0C and pH 5.0-9.0. It retained 60 percent activity at 80 0C after 4 h and more than 70 percent activity at 70 0C after 1 h. D value was found to be 342 minutes and 78 minutes for 40 0C and 80 0C respectively. Interestingly the enzyme remained 50 percent active at pH 9.0 after 1 h. Comparison with other proteases from different microbial sources indicated that the neutral protease from the halotolerant marine isolate MBRI 7 is a novel enzyme with high thermostability.

Fluctuation of microbial activities after influent load variations in a full-scale SBR: recovery of the biomass after starvation.

Due to variations in the production levels, a full-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for post-treatment of tannery wastewater was exposed to low and high ammonia load periods. In order to study how these changes affected the N-removal capacity, the microbiology of the reactor was studied by a diverse set of techniques including molecular tools, activity tests, and microbial counts in samples taken along 3 years. The recover capacity of the biomass was also studied in a lab-scale reactor operated with intermittent aeration without feeding for 36 days. The results showed that changes in the feeding negatively affected the nitrifying community, but the nitrogen removal efficiencies could be restored after the concentration stress. Species substitution was observed within the nitrifying bacteria, Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrobacter predominated initially, and after an ammonia overload period, Nitrosomonas nitrosa and Nitrospira became dominant. Some denitrifiers, with nirS related to Alicycliphilus, Azospirillum, and Marinobacter nirS, persisted during long-term reactor operation, but the community fluctuated both in composition and in abundance. This fluctuating community may better resist the continuous changes in the feeding regime. Our results showed that a nitrifying-denitrifying SBR could be operated with low loads or even without feeding during production shut down periods.

Characterization of hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial communities from mangrove sediments in Guanabara Bay, Brazil.

Hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial communities inhabiting mangrove sediments were characterized by combining molecular and culture-dependent approaches. Surface sediments were collected at two sampling sites in Guanabara Bay (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and used to inoculate in vitro enrichment cultures containing crude oil to obtain hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial consortia. In parallel, in situ mesocosms (located in the Guapimirim mangrove) were contaminated with petroleum. Comparison of bacterial community structures of the different incubations by T-RFLP analyses showed lower diversity for the enrichment cultures than for mesocosms. To further characterize the bacterial communities, bacterial strains were isolated in media containing hydrocarbon compounds. Analysis of 16S rRNA encoding sequences showed that the isolates were distributed within 12 distinct genera. Some of them were related to bacterial groups already known for their capacity to degrade hydrocarbons (such as Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, Alcanivorax, Microbulbifer, Sphingomonas, Micrococcus, Cellulomonas, Dietzia, and Gordonia groups). Other strains, with high capacity for degrading hydrocarbons (aliphatic or aromatic), were related to isolates from hydrothermal vents that have not been thus far detected in hydrocarbon-contaminated sites, nor described for their ability to grow or degrade petroleum hydrocarbons. Degradation studies showed the ability of Marinobacter, Alcanivorax and Sphingomonas isolates to degrade both PAH and alkane compounds. Our results point out the rich microbial diversity of the mangroves, whose potential for hydrocarbon degradation is promising for future studies on pollutant bioremediation.