An article in Science Daily presents the challenges for oil-eating microbes in the Arctic. These difficulties are due to six things: low temperatures, sea ice, low nutrient content, particle formation, prolonged sunlight in the summer months, and potential lack of microbial adaptations.
Low temperatures cause the oil to become more viscous and thicker. This means it is harder for the oil to disperse into small droplets that can be consumed by a wide area of microbes. Sea ice inhibits wave formation and impact. This decreased power also makes it harder for the oil to disperse into small droplets. Few nutrients in the water cause decreased activity of the oil-consuming microbes, and high particle formation and concentrations allow the oil to clump and settle to the floor where microbial productivity is decreased. Furthermore, 24 hour arctic summer sunlight may make the oil more toxic to marine life, although it could make the oil easier to process as well; the answer is still unclear. Finally, lack of exposure to oil spills may promote microbes without the adaptations to digest and process oil. However, further research is required to determine this with certainty.
This article brings to light the importance of being cautious when handling harmful pollutants. Although microbes can help clean up the oil, they may not work efficiently in arctic environments causing the death of thousands of marine organisms. The effectiveness of microbes is important especially because mechanical removal of oil can only remove 15 to 25 percent of the oil. Therefore, it is crucial that people are careful with their actions and encourage research in microbial life in the oceans because microbes, although small, play a huge impact on the health of marine environments.
Aarhus University. "Oil-eating microbes are challenged in the Arctic." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 February 2018.
I know you said that microbes may not work all that well when cleaning up the oil spill in the artic with its cold conditions. But taking climate change into account, and the increase of global temperature could this make conditions more favorable for the microbes to clean up the oil spill.
ReplyDeleteI looked up another blog on Scientific American that adds to this conversation. The author interviewed some biogeochemists, and others, that said that even though mircobes eat and digest oil components, like natural gas, they cannot eat all the compounds (estimated to be 150 different compounds in oils). Natural gas components like methane, ethane, butane, propane and pentane are eaten quick, but don't legally count as part of the oil spill. Heavier particles remain. But even then, one of the researchers found something interesting through her surveys: oil sediments from the Macondo well disaster were found under 1000 meters or more under water. The sediments even made "up to 15% of what was discharged on the seabed." This is quite intriguing because it wasn't initially thought of as a potential "fate for oil."
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