Ecological risk potentials of petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals shape the bacterial communities of marine hydrosphere at Atlantic Ocean, Atlas Cove, Nigeria
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Date
2021-04-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier Journal of Environmental Management
Abstract
Trans-Atlantic voyage of petroleum often leads to marine pollution with petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs) and
heavy metals (HMs) that defines structures of autochthonous bacteria in the hydrosphere. Bacterial taxa of
marine sediments exposed to petroleum transport activities were profiled using 16S rDNA metagenomics and
correlated with the geochemistry to establish their impact on the microbiome. The physico-chemistry of the
marine systems revealed varied degrees of contamination with PHs and HMs exceeding recommended threshold
for aquatic life. Ecological risk assessment based on organic carbon of the sediment established phenanthrene,
anthracene, and pyrene posed high risks (index risk quotient >32) to marine life. The most dominant phylum of
the 44 bacterial phyla in the marine-sphere was Proteobacteria with relative abundance of 45–77% in the
sampling locations. Relative dominance of Proteobacteria in the sediments spanned Gammaproteobacteria
(17–25%), Deltaproteobacteria (12–20%), and Alphaproteobacteria (7–14%). Whereas, more operational taxo-
nomic units (OTUs) belonging to Epsilonproteobacteria (19 ± 2.4%) were found in estuarine sediment unlike <
0.5% relative abundances obtained from oceanic sediments. Sulfurimonas apparently dominated the bacterial
genera with up to 2.16 ± 0.19% abundance in oceanic sediments. Canonical correspondence analysis revealed
that PHs shaped the structure of bacterial OTUs in oceanic sediments where petroleum loading/offloading occurs
unlike in some kilometres a yonder where HMs correlated with the bacteria structure. The dominant bacteria
might possibly pivotal to ecophysiologies of hydrocarbon contaminated marine environment, and would be
pertinent to biotechnological applications for possible bioremediation campaign.
Description
Staff Publication
Keywords
Atlantic ocean, Petroleum, Pollution, Ecological risk, Bacterial community
Citation
Oyetibo, G.O. , Ige, O.O., Obinani, P.K., Amund, O.O. (2021). Ecological risk potentials of petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals shape the bacterial communities of marine hydrosphere at Atlantic Ocean, Atlas Cove, Nigeria. Journal of Environmental Management, 289, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112563.