Evaluating the Impact of Nutrient Doses on Biostimulation of Petroleum Hydrocarbon Biodegradation in Cold Region Soils

Abstract

Biostimulation by addition of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) for enhancement of biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in contaminated soils is a common practice in sub-Arctic (cold) regions. Based on the data reported in 58 peerreviewed papers on hydrocarbon degradation in northern region soils, there was no identifiable optimal nutrient dose, although applied doses ranged over 3 orders of magnitude. Microcosm slurry biodegradation experiments conducted over a range of N (41 to 1350 mg/kg) and P (46 and 115 mg/kg) doses, using a northern site soil spiked with Arctic diesel, also showed comparable results. While addition of nutrients improved degradation extents, the degradation extents were not dependent on N and P doses. Biodegradation rate constants for C 10 −C 16 and C 16 −C 24 hydrocarbon fractions, however, showed the highest enhancements for the lowest N dose. Microbial community composition analysis based on 16S rRNA sequencing of DNA extracted from microcosms amended with only diesel, only nutrients, and both diesel and nutrients revealed that diesel enriched hydrocarbon degraders such as Pseudomonadaceae and Burkholderiaceae. Overall, our results and analyses show limited benefits of biostimulation of hydrocarbon degradation with high nutrient doses, and low nutrient doses are generally more or equally effective.

Measuring the Fate and Natural Attenuation Potential of a Viscous Marine Fuel on an Artificial Beach Mesocosm

“…In those samples, the prokaryotic alpha-diversity was strongly associated with salinity, temperature and organic carbon content (Jeanbille et al 2016). Additionally, nutrient availability is a key factor for increasing microbial biomass and promoting hydrocarbon degradation (Ortmann et al 2019;Bianco et al 2020;Fragkou et al 2021;Ellis et al 2022;Kundu et al 2022;Michel et al 2022). Contrary to the results for the tidal flat in this study, several studies demonstrated nutrient addition significantly enriched hydrocarbon degraders and enhanced biodegradation rate (Chang et al 2010;Kim et al 2018;Bianco et al 2020;Ellis et al 2022).…”

Advances in bioremediation techniques for the degradation of hydrocarbons in soils

“…Furthermore, through studies of soil microbial evolution, it has been shown that biostimulation ensures soil microbial uniformity and diversity, allowing for more efficient hydrocarbon degradation (Wu et al, 2019). It was also shown that in soils contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons there was an enrichment of degrading microorganisms of the Pseudomonadaceae and Burkholderiaceae bacterial families, based on 16S rRNA sequencing of DNA analysis (Kundu et al, 2022).…”