title: Succession of microbial functional communities in response to a pilot-scale ethanol-blended fuel release throughout the plume life cycle.
abstract: GeoChip, a comprehensive gene microarray, was used to examine changes in microbial functional gene structure throughout the 4-year life cycle of a pilot-scale ethanol blend plume, including 2-year continuous released followed by plume disappearance after source removal. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and Mantel tests showed that dissolved O2 (which was depleted within 5 days of initiating the release and rebounded 194 days after source removal) was the most influential environmental factor on community structure. Initially, the abundance of anaerobic BTEX degradation genes increased significantly while that of aerobic BTEX degradation genes decreased. Gene abundance for N fixation, nitrification, P utilization, sulfate reduction and S oxidation also increased, potentially changing associated biogeochemical cycle dynamics. After plume disappearance, most genes returned to pre-release abundance levels, but the final functional structure significantly differed from pre-release conditions. Overall, observed successions of functional structure reflected adaptive responses that were conducive to biodegradation of ethanol-blend releases.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, Beijing Key Lab of Oil & Gas Pollution Control, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Institute for Environmental Genomics, and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.
authors.forename: Tong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Earth Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94270, USA.
authors.forename: Jizhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA. Electronic address: alvarez@rice.edu.
authors.forename: Pedro J J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Alvarez
mesh_terms: D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D055884:Chemical Hazard Release; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000378:metabolism*; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism*; D064351:Genes, Microbial; D008018:Life Cycle Stages; D059013:Microbial Consortia; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010865:Pilot Projects; D040081:Protein Array Analysis
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D000431:Ethanol
keywords: Biodegradation; Fuel ethanol; Groundwater; Metagenomics; Remediation; Resilience