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Aerobic Hydrocarbon-Degrading Archaea

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Taxonomy, Genomics and Ecophysiology of Hydrocarbon-Degrading Microbes

Part of the book series: Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology ((HHLM))

Abstract

Enrichment cultures for microorganisms able to degrade aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons at high salt concentrations have resulted in the isolation of a number of strains of hydrocarbon-utilizing aerobic extremely halophilic Archaea of the class Halobacteria. Such isolates have been obtained from salt marshes and saltern ponds in the south of France, coastal sabkhas in Kuwait, a solar saltern in Turkey, Lake Urmia in Iran, an oil field in Tatarstan, and other hypersaline environments. Phylogenetically these isolates are affiliated with the genera Halobacterium, Haloarcula, Halococcus (order Halobacteriales), Haloferax and Halorubrum (order Haloferacales), and Natrialba (order Natrialbales). They grow at near-neutral pH at salt concentrations from >10% up to saturation. Compounds reported to be used as growth substrates include crude oil, C10-C34 n-alkanes, pristane, and aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, naphthalene, acenaphthene, phenanthrene, anthracene, and pyrene. Unfortunately none of the strains have been well documented taxonomically, biochemically, and genomically, and none of the isolates is currently available from publicly accessible culture collections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Aharon Oren

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  1. Aharon Oren
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Correspondence to Aharon Oren .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Terry J. McGenity

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Oren, A. (2019). Aerobic Hydrocarbon-Degrading Archaea. In: McGenity, T. (eds) Taxonomy, Genomics and Ecophysiology of Hydrocarbon-Degrading Microbes. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14796-9_5

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