Deepwater Horizon Bacteria May Provide Fresh Thinking to Bunker Spill Cleanup

Researchers say bacteria has eaten a large amount of the oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. File Image / CC0

In a development that could provide new insight into bunker spill clean up, researchers at Berkley Lab, University of California in the U.S. this week say a new type of underwater bacteria has been discovered that has eaten a large amount of the oil spilled during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

While previous research had suggested that dispersants used in spill response slowed microbes' ability to degrade oil, a new study suggests that dispersants broke up the oil into underwater clouds of tiny droplets, providing more available surface area and keeping it deeper in the water column, making it more available to the microbes that live there in the process.

The study team examined water samples from the area around the spill and recreated the spill conditions with a computer simulation, mimicking what would taken place in the water following the accident.

The results revealed one particularly dominant bacterium, Candidatus Bermanella macondoprimitus, which had not been observed by previous research teams.

"Laboratory experimental studies by other groups have not replicated the suspension of dispersed oil droplet conditions observed in deep-water plumes," stated the research paper, adding that this "may explain why these studies have been unable to enrich the early responding Bermanella and recreate the succession of bacteria observed in the field."

Gary Andersen, a microbial ecologist at the University of California and the study's senior author, said that while it is difficult to determine the exact amount of oil that the microbes so far consumed, "we now have the capability to identify the specific organisms that would naturally degrade the oil if spills occurred in other regions and to calculate the rates of the oil degradation to figure out how long it would take to consume the spilled oil at depth."

"Our greatest hope would be that there were no oil spills in the future. But having the ability to manipulate conditions in the laboratory could potentially allow us develop new insights for mitigating their impact."

The study, "Simulation of Deepwater Horizon oil plume reveals substrate specialization within a complex community of hydrocarbon-degraders," has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.