scholarly journals Environmental DNA preserved in marine sediment for detecting jellyfish blooms after a tsunami

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mizuki Ogata ◽  
Reiji Masuda ◽  
Hiroya Harino ◽  
Masayuki K. Sakata ◽  
Makoto Hatakeyama ◽  
...  

AbstractEnvironmental DNA (eDNA) can be a powerful tool for detecting the distribution and abundance of target species. This study aimed to test the longevity of eDNA in marine sediment through a tank experiment and to use this information to reconstruct past faunal occurrence. In the tank experiment, juvenile jack mackerel (Trachurus japonicus) were kept in flow-through tanks with marine sediment for two weeks. Water and sediment samples from the tanks were collected after the removal of fish. In the field trial, sediment cores were collected in Moune Bay, northeast Japan, where unusual blooms of jellyfish (Aurelia sp.) occurred after a tsunami. The samples were analyzed by layers to detect the eDNA of jellyfish. The tank experiment revealed that after fish were removed, eDNA was not present in the water the next day, or subsequently, whereas eDNA was detectable in the sediment for 12 months. In the sediment core samples, jellyfish eDNA was detected at high concentrations above the layer with the highest content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, reflecting tsunami-induced oil spills. Thus, marine sediment eDNA preserves a record of target species for at least one year and can be used to reconstruct past faunal occurrence.

2012 ◽  
Vol 78 (10) ◽  
pp. 3638-3648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Coulon ◽  
Panagiota-Myrsini Chronopoulou ◽  
Anne Fahy ◽  
Sandrine Païssé ◽  
Marisol Goñi-Urriza ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTMudflats and salt marshes are habitats at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial systems that provide valuable services to ecosystems. Therefore, it is important to determine how catastrophic incidents, such as oil spills, influence the microbial communities in sediment that are pivotal to the function of the ecosystem and to identify the oil-degrading microbes that mitigate damage to the ecosystem. In this study, an oil spill was simulated by use of a tidal chamber containing intact diatom-dominated sediment cores from a temperate mudflat. Changes in the composition of bacteria and diatoms from both the sediment and tidal biofilms that had detached from the sediment surface were monitored as a function of hydrocarbon removal. The hydrocarbon concentration in the upper 1.5 cm of sediments decreased by 78% over 21 days, with at least 60% being attributed to biodegradation. Most phylotypes were minimally perturbed by the addition of oil, but at day 21, there was a 10-fold increase in the amount of cyanobacteria in the oiled sediment. Throughout the experiment, phylotypes associated with the aerobic degradation of hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Cycloclasticus) and alkanes (Alcanivorax,Oleibacter, andOceanospirillalesstrain ME113), substantively increased in oiled mesocosms, collectively representing 2% of the pyrosequences in the oiled sediments at day 21. Tidal biofilms from oiled cores at day 22, however, consisted mostly of phylotypes related toAlcanivorax borkumensis(49% of clones),Oceanospirillalesstrain ME113 (11% of clones), and diatoms (14% of clones). Thus, aerobic hydrocarbon biodegradation is most likely to be the main mechanism of attenuation of crude oil in the early weeks of an oil spill, with tidal biofilms representing zones of high hydrocarbon-degrading activity.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.-H. von Bonsdorff ◽  
L. Maunula ◽  
R.M. Niemi ◽  
R. Rimhanen-Finne ◽  
M.-L. Hänninen ◽  
...  

The purpose of this study was to monitor the levels of human enteric viruses and enteric protozoa and to relate their presence to the microbes used as hygienic quality indicators in domestic sewage from a small community in Finland during a period of one year. Genome-based sensitive detection methods for the pathogens selected (astro- and Norwalk-like viruses, Giardia and Cryptosporidium) have become available only recently and thus no earlier data was available. The effluent sewage is delivered into a river that serves as raw water for a larger town and the pathogens therefore constitute a health risk. The results showed that all the monitored pathogens could be detected, and that enteric viruses were present at considerable concentrations in sewage. High concentrations of astrovirus in raw sewage were observed during a diarrhea epidemic in the local day-care centre. The presence of viruses did not correlate with the monitored bacterial indicators of faecal contamination (coliforms, E. coli and enterococci) or with bacteriophages (somatic coliphages, F-specific RNA phages and B. fragilis phages). Giardia cysts and Cryptosporidium oocysts were detected from one sample (1/10) each.


1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Chow-Fraser ◽  
Barb Crosbie ◽  
Douglas Bryant ◽  
Brian McCarry

Abstract During the summer of 1994, we compared the physical and nutrient characteristics of the three main tributaries of Cootes Paradise: Spencer, Chedoke and Borer’s creeks. On all sampling occasions, concentrations of CHL α and nutrients were always lowest in Borer’s Creek and highest in Chedoke Creek. There were generally 10-fold higher CHL α concentrations and 2 to 10 times higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in Chedoke Creek compared with Spencer Creek. Despite this, the light environment did not differ significantly between Spencer and Chedoke creeks because the low algal biomass in Spencer Creek was balanced by a relatively high loading of inorganic sediments from the watershed. Laboratory experiments indicated that sediments from Chedoke Creek released up to 10 µg/g of soluble phosphorus per gram (dry weight) of sediment, compared with only 2 µg/g from Spencer Creek. By contrast, sediment samples from Spencer Creek contained levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon that were as high as or higher than those from Chedoke Creek, and much higher than those found in Borer’s Creek. The distribution of normalized PAH concentrations suggests a common source of PAHs in all three tributaries, most likely automobile exhaust, since there were high concentrations of fluoranthene and pyrene, both of which are derivatives of engine combustion.


1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 203-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Al-Muzaini ◽  
P. G. Jacob

A field study was carried out involving seven fixed sampling stations. The sampling locations were selected to cover the distribution of pollutants in the Shuaiba Industrial Area (SIA), which was contaminated with oil released from oil wells and broken pipelines and with a vast amount of burnt and unburnt crude oil from the burning and gushing oil wells. The samples were collected biweekly between July 1993 and July 1994. The concentrations of V, Ni, Cr, Cd and Pb were determined and compared with the previously collected baseline data to assess the degree of environmental damage caused due to the oil spills during the Gulf war. The average concentrations (mg/kg) of various elements in the marine sediment were 17.3 for V, 30.8 for Ni, 55.5 for Cr, 0.02 for Cd and 1.95 for Pb. Our results show that even after the heavy spillage of oil, associated metal concentrations were not very high compared with previously reported base line values.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2246
Author(s):  
Georgia Charalampous ◽  
Efsevia Fragkou ◽  
Konstantinos A. Kormas ◽  
Alexandre B. De Menezes ◽  
Paraskevi N. Polymenakou ◽  
...  

The diversity and degradation capacity of hydrocarbon-degrading consortia from surface and deep waters of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea were studied in time-series experiments. Microcosms were set up in ONR7a medium at in situ temperatures of 25 °C and 14 °C for the Surface and Deep consortia, respectively, and crude oil as the sole source of carbon. The Deep consortium was additionally investigated at 25 °C to allow the direct comparison of the degradation rates to the Surface consortium. In total, ~50% of the alkanes and ~15% of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were degraded in all treatments by Day 24. Approximately ~95% of the total biodegradation by the Deep consortium took place within 6 days regardless of temperature, whereas comparable levels of degradation were reached on Day 12 by the Surface consortium. Both consortia were dominated by well-known hydrocarbon-degrading taxa. Temperature played a significant role in shaping the Deep consortia communities with Pseudomonas and Pseudoalteromonas dominating at 25 °C and Alcanivorax at 14 °C. Overall, the Deep consortium showed a higher efficiency for hydrocarbon degradation within the first week following contamination, which is critical in the case of oil spills, and thus merits further investigation for its exploitation in bioremediation technologies tailored to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6660
Author(s):  
Marco Ferrante ◽  
Anuma Dangol ◽  
Shoshana Didi-Cohen ◽  
Gidon Winters ◽  
Vered Tzin ◽  
...  

Vachellia (formerly Acacia) trees are native to arid environments in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where they often support the local animal and plant communities acting as keystone species. The aim of this study was to examine whether oil pollution affected the central metabolism of the native keystone trees Vachellia tortilis (Forssk.) and V. raddiana (Savi), as either adults or seedlings. The study was conducted in the Evrona Nature Reserve, a desert ecosystem in southern Israel where two major oil spills occurred in 1975 and in 2014. Leaf samples were collected to analyze the central metabolite profiles from oil-polluted and unpolluted adult trees and from Vachellia seedlings growing in oil-polluted and unpolluted soils in an outdoor setup. We found that oil pollution had a stronger effect on one-year-old seedlings than on adult trees, reducing the levels of amino acids, sugars, and organic acids. While adult trees are mildly affected by oil pollution, the effects on young seedlings can cause a long-term reduction in the population of these keystone desert trees, ultimately threatening this entire ecosystem.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 117693432110168
Author(s):  
Rita Rahmeh ◽  
Abrar Akbar ◽  
Vinod Kumar ◽  
Hamad Al-Mansour ◽  
Mohamed Kishk ◽  
...  

Soil contamination by hydrocarbons due to oil spills has become a global concern and it has more implications in oil producing regions. Biostimulation is considered as one of the promising remediation techniques that can be adopted to enhance the rate of degradation of crude oil. The soil microbial consortia play a critical role in governing the biodegradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs), in particular polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In this study, the degradation pattern of TPHs and PAHs of Kuwait soil biopiles was measured at three-month intervals. Then, the microbial consortium associated with oil degradation at each interval was revealed through 16S rRNA based next generation sequencing. Rapid degradation of TPHs and most of the PAHs was noticed at the first 3 months of biostimulation with a degradation rate of pyrene significantly higher compared to other PAHs counterparts. The taxonomic profiling of individual stages of remediation revealed that, biostimulation of the investigated soil favored the growth of Proteobacteria, Alphaprotobacteria, Chloroflexi, Chlorobi, and Acidobacteria groups. These findings provide a key step towards the restoration of oil-contaminated lands in the arid environment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document