Effects of soil organic matter and bacterial community shift on bioremediation of diesel-contaminated soil

Bioremediation of diesel-contaminated soils were applied to investigating effects of soil organic matter (SOM) and bacterial community shift. Soil samples were artificially contaminated with diesel oil, ranging from 4000 to 12000 mg/kg soil, remediated with laboratory-scale landfarming batch applications. The SOM levels in our experiment were 2.3% (presented as SOM15), 8.9% (SOM092), and 11.8% (SOM125). Based on each of the SOM levels, bioremediation approaches of bioaugmentation (BA015, BA092, and BA125) and using indigenous microorganisms as control groups (CT015, CT092, and CT125) were tested. After about 300-day operation, total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) degradation efficiency became 73%, 63%, and 59% in SOM015, SOM092, and SOM125, respectively. Their 1st order degradation rates also reduced with the increase of SOM. We preliminarily concluded that SOM affected the TPH degradation efficiency and 1st degradation rates. With a logarithm transformation, the degradation pattern of SOM092 and SOM125 found to resemble each other. No apparent improvement was found from the BA batches. Our Intergenic spacer (ITS) microarray result indicated the existence of diesel-degrading bacteria in the indigenous communities. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS) based on terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) data indicated that 1) CT community became similar to BA community, once the 1st degradation stage started, impling an activation of the indigenous bacteria; 2) the degradation stage affected the community dynamics more than the SOM or the remediation approaches could do, and 3) both BA092 and BA125 located in the same cluster on the MDS plot all the time, revealing the similar communities. The similar communities might cause the comparable degradation patterns in SOM092 and SOM125. The bacteria community shift found useful in explaining the TPH degradation performance.

► The total petroleum hydrocarbon degradability reduced with the increase of soil organic matter. ► The Intergenic spacer array identified diesel degrading bacteria in the indigenous community. ► The ITS array explained the similar TPH degradability between the control and experimental tests. ► The MDS plot based on T-RFLP revealed the degradation stages affected the community dynamics most.