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Investigating a lotic microbial community following a severe detergent spill

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Abstract

A large non-ionic detergent spill affected the Yarqon stream, where water sampling was performed prior to the spill as a part of the stream’s routine sampling and during and after the event. Following the spill, a large foam layer was observed for about 3–4 days accompanied by death of all fauna in the stream. Despite a large quantity of freshwater that was introduced to the stream as an emergency measure, a drastic decrease in dissolved oxygen was also observed. A rapid reduction in bacterial diversity and richness, as measured by automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis, was also evident, as microbial assemblages changes accompanied pollutant exposure. However, this analysis showed that the microbial assemblages of the stream were quick to recover and became similar to pre-spill communities as early as a week after the spill. These findings suggest that bacterial assemblages are much more robust to large anthropogenic disturbances than expected.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University and the Smaller-Winnikow fund. The research field sampling was conducted with the approvals and kind help of the “Yarqon Stream Authority.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Amitai Or & Uri Gophna

Authors
  1. Amitai Or
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  2. Uri Gophna
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Correspondence to Uri Gophna.

Additional information

Communicated by Jörg Overmann.

Electronic supplementary material

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203_2013_948_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig 1: The Yarqon stream. Sampling locations are marked by arrows: Brechat Nofarim – Eastern point (E), Geha Bridge – Middle point (M), Marine Center – Western point (W) (TIFF 395 kb)

203_2013_948_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig 2: Levels of: Dissolved oxygen; in the Yarqon stream. The distribution of the measurements is displayed according to both chronological time and geographic location (TIFF 212 kb)

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Supplementary Fig 3: Levels of: Biological oxygen demand (BOD), in the Yarqon stream. The distribution of the measurements is displayed according to both chronological time and geographic location (TIFF 189 kb)

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Supplementary Fig 4: Levels of: Dominance in the Yarqon stream. The distribution of the measurements is displayed according to both chronological time and geographic location (TIFF 181 kb)

203_2013_948_MOESM5_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig 5: Richness indices in the Yarqon stream. The distribution of the measurements is displayed according to both chronological time and geographic location (TIFF 227 kb)

203_2013_948_MOESM6_ESM.docx

Supplementary Table1: Materials which may be a part of the spill event. Due to the unexpected accident and the event of fire, there was no way to estimate the quantities or concentrations of the reagents which found their way to the stream (DOCX 13 kb)

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Or, A., Gophna, U. Investigating a lotic microbial community following a severe detergent spill. Arch Microbiol 196, 119–124 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-013-0948-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-013-0948-9

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