Bacterial community of tarballs collected from the Alabama Gulf Coast
Tarballs are formed from released or discharged crude oil containing sulfur compounds. A considerable amount and variety of sulfate-reducing bacteria and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were identified in tarballs collected from the intertidal and supratidal zones of Alabama Gulf beaches. Our metagenomic sequencing targeting bacterial 16S rRNA gene showed that the distribution of SRB were more abundant in core than on the surface of tarballs.