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Distribution of Anaerobic Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria in Soils from King George Island, Maritime Antarctica

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Anaerobic diesel fuel Arctic (DFA) degradation has already been demonstrated in Antarctic soils. However, studies comparing the distribution of anaerobic bacterial groups and of anaerobic hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in Antarctic soils containing different concentrations of DFA are scarce. In this study, functional genes were used to study the diversity and distribution of anaerobic hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria (bamA, assA, and bssA) and of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB—apsR) in highly, intermediate, and non-DFA-contaminated soils collected during the summers of 2009, 2010, and 2011 from King George Island, Antarctica. Signatures of bamA genes were detected in all soils analyzed, whereas bssA and assA were found in only 4 of 10 soils. The concentration of DFA was the main factor influencing the distribution of bamA-containing bacteria and of SRB in the analyzed soils, as shown by PCR-DGGE results. bamA sequences related to genes previously described in Desulfuromonas, Lautropia, Magnetospirillum, Sulfuritalea, Rhodovolum, Rhodomicrobium, Azoarcus, Geobacter, Ramlibacter, and Gemmatimonas genera were dominant in King George Island soils. Although DFA modulated the distribution of bamA-hosting bacteria, DFA concentration was not related to bamA abundance in the soils studied here. This result suggests that King George Island soils show functional redundancy for aromatic hydrocarbon degradation. The results obtained in this study support the hypothesis that specialized anaerobic hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria have been selected by hydrocarbon concentrations present in King George Island soils.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Juliano Cury for providing the Antarctic soil samples. This study was supported by grants from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) and received financial and logistic support from the Brazilian Antarctic Program, PROANTAR, as part of the IPY Activity no. 403 “MIDIAPI Microbial Diversity of Terrestrial and Maritime ecosystems in Antarctic Peninsula” (520194/2006-3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Microbiologia Prof. Paulo de Góes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Dayanna Souza Sampaio, Juliana Rodrigues Barboza Almeida, Hugo E. de Jesus, Alexandre S. Rosado, Lucy Seldin & Diogo Jurelevicius

  2. Laboratório de Genética Microbiana, Departamento de Microbiologia Geral, Instituto de Microbiologia Paulo de Góes (IMPPG), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Bloco I, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-590, Brazil

    Diogo Jurelevicius

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  1. Dayanna Souza Sampaio
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  2. Juliana Rodrigues Barboza Almeida
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  3. Hugo E. de Jesus
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Correspondence to Diogo Jurelevicius.

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Sampaio, D.S., Almeida, J.R.B., de Jesus, H.E. et al. Distribution of Anaerobic Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria in Soils from King George Island, Maritime Antarctica. Microb Ecol 74, 810–820 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-0973-3

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