Marine bacteria in Canadian Arctic can eat up oil and diesel: study

TORONTO -

Marine bacteria in the ice-cold waters of northern Canada can play a key role in containing potential offshore oil spills in the Arctic, according to a new study.

The study showed that even in frigid waters off the Labrador coast these microbes were capable of biodegrading oil and diesel fuel.

“Most of the studies that look at oil-eating bacteria are from lower latitudes,” Dr. Casey Hubert, associate professor of geomicrobiology at the University of Calgary and co-author of the study, told CTVNews.ca. “It’s not new that bacteria eat oil, but it’s interesting to start to learn about how they would do that in Arctic environments where the temperature is really cold.”

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Something that is new, however, is that certain bacteria observed hadn’t shown this type of behaviour previously.

“Some of these groups had not ever before been shown to be capable of this oil degradation,” Hubert said. “By looking at a permanently cold marine environment, we see for the first time some groups weren’t known before to be able to degrade oil that we now add to that list.”

The study, published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, involved researchers simulating oil spill remediation inside bottles by combining mud from the top few centimetres of the seabed from the Labrador Sea with artificial seawater and either diesel or crude oil.

In addition, the researchers confirmed that the use of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, could enhance the biodegradation process, even in the permanently cold environment.

The Labrador coast is important for the local Nunatsiavut indigenous population, who rely on the waters for food and business. It’s also the site of increasing industrial activity related to maritime shipping and offshore oil and gas sector activities, according to Hubert, and research on bioremediation at high latitudes has been scarce.

“There’s risks that come along with industrial activity, and oil spills are one of them,” he said. “Based on the study we’re optimistic that there are indeed microbial populations in the Labrador Sea that would respond.”

That could be especially important considering the emergency response to an oil spill in such remote areas could be complicated and slow.

“These studies help you to define, if there’s an accident, what changes would you expect. Are these microbes going to ride to the rescue?” Hubert said. “We like to say that microbes are nature’s first emergency responders … they start cleaning up the oil if they have the ability to degrade.”

He added: “If you want to anticipate or be ready for or know what to expect if you have an oil spill if you’re in the Arctic, some of these new groups are relevant ones to screen for and scan for, and that’s the kind of thing that can be done in advance as part of any healthy ocean data-driven management approach.”