Microbial interactions and implications for oil biodegradation process in mangrove sediments

Mangrove sediment harbors a unique microbiome and is a hospitable environment for the growth of a diverse group of bacteria capable of oil biodegradation. Our goal was to understand bacterial community dynamics from mangrove sediments under heavy-oil contamination stress, and to look for common patterns that may be associated with oil biodegradation is such environments. We tested the hypothesis of a two-phase pattern of petroleum biodegradation, already reported in the literature, where key events in the degradation process take place in the first three weeks after the contamination. Two sample sites with different oil pollution history were compared through T-RFLP analyses and using a pragmatic approach based on the Microbial Resource Management Framework. Our data corroborated the already reported two-phase pattern of oil biodegradation, although the original proposed explanation is questioned, opening up the possibility to consider other plausible hypothesis of microbial interactions as the main drivers of this pattern.