Interaction between oil contamination and microbial community structure

Several bacteria strains are isolated from two kinds of soils, and 6 of which are screened out as high hydrocarbon degrad- ers. The 6 bacteria strains are identified to category as Pseudomonas (A1), Sphingomonas (A2), Micrococcus (A6), Arthrobacter (A8), Acinetobacter (B2) and Nocardia (B5) respectively. And the degradation tests of different hydrocarbons compositions by indi- vidual isolates and different bacteria mixture are analyzed, the results indicate that there are different metabolization content for various hydrocarbon composition by the bacteria isolated from different crude oil contaminated soil. The microbial populations A1, A2, A6 and A8 enriched in the crude oil contaminated soil exhibit a narrow range of metabolic activities to saturate compounds that limit the degradation of non-saturate compounds; while microbial populations B2and B5 enriched in the absence of crude oil but just with aromatics are able to degrade a wider range of hydrocarbons both to saturate and aromatic compounds.