Effect of Biostimulation Using Sewage Sludge, Soybean Meal, and Wheat Straw on Oil Degradation and Bacterial Community Composition in a Contaminated Desert Soil

Abstract

Waste materials have a strong potential in the bioremediation of oil-contaminated sites, because of their richness in nutrients and their economical feasibility. We used sewage sludge, soybean meal, and wheat straw to biostimulate oil degradation in a heavily contaminated desert soil. While oil degradation was assessed by following the produced CO2 and by using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), shifts in bacterial community composition were monitored using illumina MiSeq. The addition of sewage sludge and wheat straw to the desert soil stimulated the respiration activities to reach 3.2–3.4 times higher than in the untreated soil, whereas the addition of soybean meal resulted in an insignificant change in the produced CO2, given the high respiration activities of the soybean meal alone. GC–MS analysis revealed that the addition of sewage sludge and wheat straw resulted in 1.7–1.8 fold increase in the degraded C14 to C30 alkanes, compared to only 1.3 fold increase in the case of soybean meal addition. The degradation of ≥90% of the C14 to C30 alkanes was measured in the soils treated with sewage sludge and wheat straw. MiSeq sequencing revealed that the majority (76.5–86.4% of total sequences) of acquired sequences from the untreated soil belonged to Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Firmicutes. Multivariate analysis of operational taxonomic units placed the bacterial communities of the soils after the treatments in separate clusters (ANOSIM R = 0.66, P = 0.0001). The most remarkable shift in bacterial communities was in the wheat straw treatment, where 95–98% of the total sequences were affiliated to Bacilli. We conclude that sewage sludge and wheat straw are useful biostimulating agents for the cleanup of oil-contaminated desert soils.

Changes in bacterial diversity associated with bioremediation of used lubricating oil in tropical soils

“…While previous studies have applied HTS to characterize crude oil contaminated soils (Al-Kindi and Abed 2016), this study is the first to characterize the microbial community in tropical ULO-contaminated soil using combined fingerprinting and Illumina MiSeq techniques. The increased sequencing depth associated with HTS allows for the identification of rare bacteria and provided access to the genetic diversity of microbial assemblages in these ULO-contaminated soils.…”

Functional Genetic Diversity and Culturability of Petroleum-Degrading Bacteria Isolated From Oil-Contaminated Soils

“…Culture-independent approaches using both, 16S rRNA genes (Jiao et al, 2016 ) and functional genes (Yang et al, 2014 ), have been used for isolation of diverse bacteria from petroleum contaminated soils. There are more studies focusing on the succession of bacterial community structures in oil-contaminated soils during bioremediation (Ai-Kindi and Abed, 2016 ; Leewis et al, 2016 ; Pacwa-Plociniczak et al, 2016 ; Wu et al, 2016 , 2017 ). It has been shown that bacterial compositions differ significantly between culture-dependent and -independent methods (Stefani et al, 2015 ).…”

Construction and Evaluation of a Korean Native Microbial Consortium for the Bioremediation of Diesel Fuel-Contaminated Soil in Korea

“…There have been many reports that the biodegradation of organic pollutants by indigenous microorganisms is promoted only by the supplementation of nutrients ( Chang et al, 2010 ; Karamalidis et al, 2010 ; Ai-Kindi and Abed, 2016 ) and that treatment with nutrients can be more efficient than the supplement of exogeneous microorganisms because exogeneous microorganisms will sometimes fail to survive and grow in contaminated sites ( Atlas, 1995 ; Margesin and Schinner, 2001 ; Bento et al, 2005 ; Thompson et al, 2005 ). However, the degradation test showed that the inoculation of a microbial consortium clearly improved the TPH decrease in the contaminated soil.…”

“…To accomplish successful bioremediation, many issues, including the types of organic compound present, the use of appropriate biodegrading microorganisms and their biodegradation properties, and diverse environmental factors such as water content, temperature, pH, and heavy metal content should be addressed ( Gandolfi et al, 2010 ; Jeon and Madsen, 2013 ), but are not easily resolved due to their complexity. However, these limitations may be easily overcome by the application of a microbial consortium consisting of multiple strains with diverse biodegradation abilities and physiological properties that ensure survival in a contaminated site with diverse environmental conditions ( Rahman et al, 2002 ; Thompson et al, 2005 ; Wu et al, 2012 ; M′rassi et al, 2015 ; Ai-Kindi and Abed, 2016 ; Li et al, 2016 ; Gurav et al, 2017 ). In this study a native microbial consortium, complying with international law and national legislation for biological resources, was constructed using microbial strains that were isolated from Korea, for the bioremediation of diesel fuel-contaminated soil in Korea.…”