Biostimulation Reveals Functional Redundancy of Anthracene-Degrading Bacteria in Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Soil.

Stable-isotope probing was previously used to identify bacterial anthracene-degraders in untreated soil from a former manufactured gas plant site. However, subsequent pyrosequence analyses of total bacterial communities and quantification of 16S rRNA genes indicated that relative abundances of the predominant anthracene-degrading bacteria (designated Anthracene Group 1) diminished as a result of biological treatment conditions in lab-scale, aerobic bioreactors. This study identified Alphaproteobacterial anthracene-degrading bacteria in bioreactor-treated soil which were dissimilar to those previously identified. The largest group of sequences was from the Alterythrobacter genus while other groups of sequences were associated with bacteria within the order Rhizobiales and the genus Bradyrhizobium. Conditions in the bioreactor enriched for organisms capable of degrading anthracene which were not the same as those identified as dominant degraders in the untreated soil. Further, these data suggest that identification of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in contaminated but untreated soil may be a poor indicator of the most active degraders during biological treatment.