Enhanced bioremediation of oil-polluted, hypersaline, coastal areas in Kuwait via vitamin-fertilization.

There is no research published sofar on managements that could bioremediate hypersaline soils and water polluted with hydrocarbons. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of vitamin amendment on hydrocarbon removal by microorganisms indigenous to such hypersaline environments. We used in this study ten hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial species and five archaeal species that had been isolated by the conventional plating method on media containing oil as a sole carbon source, from a hypersaline (3-4 M NaCl) coastal area in Kuwait, and characterized by sequencing of their 16S rRNA coding genes. The oil and pure hydrocarbon consumption was measured by gas-liquid chromatography. The oil and pure hydrocarbon consumption potential of all microorganisms in media with hypersalinity was enhanced by vitamin fertilization. This was true for individual microorganisms in pure cultures as well as for microbial consortia in hypersaline soil and water samples used as inocula. Most effective vitamins were thiamin, pyridoxine and vitamin B12. Vitamin fertilization using vitamin rich wastes or byproducts could be an effective practice for enhancing bioremediation of oil contaminated hypersaline environments.