Short-term effects of diesel oil and dispersant on marine microbial communities in the Baltic Sea surface water in coastal areas and open sea

This study compares microbial communities at three distinct locations of the Baltic Sea and monitors the short-term effects of diesel oil and dispersant Finasol 51 on microbial communities in a microcosm experiment upto 72 h incubations at 10°C. Microbial community composition was studied using archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA gene and fungal ITS1 region targeted amplicon sequencing. The size of the bacterial communities and the number of PAH-ring-hydroxylating dioxygenases (RHD) and alkane hydroxylases (AlkB) genes for microbial petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) degradation was estimated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).