Microbial community composition in petroleum-contaminated and uncontaminated soil from Francisco de Orellana, in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon

Authors

  • Verónica Barragán Institute of Microbiology, University San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
  • Iván Aveiga ECUAVITAL, Quito, Ecuador
  • Gabriel Trueba Institute of Microbiology, University San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador

Keywords:

16S rRNA bacterial diversity, cultivable microorganisms, petroleum soil contamination, northern Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract

The microbial compositions of two soils from the northern Ecuadorian Amazon (Francisco de Arellana province), one contaminated with petroleum and the other uncontaminated, were compared. Classical culture and moleculartechniques were used to analyze microbial diversity. The cultivable Bacteria from contaminated soil belonged to betapro-teobacteria (16.6%), gammaproteobacteria (66.6%), and Firmicutes (16,6%), whereas in uncontaminated soil, cultivable Bacteria were identified as gammaproteobacteria (80%) and Firmicutes (20%). Analysis of the 16S rRNA showed that in thecontaminated soil proteobacterial populations (alpha-, beta- and deltaproteobacteria) were more abundant than acidobacterialpopulations. The Shannon index (H′ ) was used to estimate diversity in the contaminated and uncontaminated soil. Diversitywas higher in the uncontaminated (H′ = 2.16) than in the contaminated (H′ = 1.72) soil sample. Further studies are neededto determine whether the differences between contaminated and non-contaminated soil samples were due to spontaneousbioremediation microbial activity.

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Published

2009-02-27

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 2 (2008)

Section

Research Articles

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