Molecular microbial ecology of contaminated marine sediment near Casey Station, Antarctica ...

• Main Author: Powell, Shane
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Casey Station; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23244602.v1; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Molecular_microbial_ecology_of_contaminated_marine_sediment_near_Casey_Station_Antarctica/23244602/1

The Antarctic marine environment is a beautiful and productive yet fragile and sensitive ecosystem. In areas close to research stations, there is evidence of the impact of human activities in the form of petroleum and heavy-metal contamination. The process of biodegradation by microbes is a major pathway for the removal of some of these contaminants from the environment. It is therefore important to understand the response of microbial communities to pollution. In this study, molecular techniques were used to investigate the microbial ecology of impacted and non-impacted marine sediments near Casey Station, Antarctica. Initially, a study of the microbial diversity in an impacted and non-impacted bay showed that the two bays had diverse but not significantly different communities. 16S rRNA gene clone libraries revealed the presence of similar species to those found in other cold marine sediments. However, there was a cluster of clones related to the hydrocarbon-utilising sulfate-reducing genus Desulfobacula ...