Conditioners and significance of t-RFLP profile of the assemblage of prokaryotic microorganisms in crude oil polluted soils

Abstract

Following an increased interest in management practices designed to reduce posed phytotoxicity during phytoremediation experiments, crude oil polluted soil and variants from conditioners-aided phytoremediation experiment were subjected to terminal restriction fragment polymorphism (t-RFLP) to evalute the biodiversity of bacterial microflora of polluted soil and amendments conditions. Genetic fingerprinting showed that hydrocarbons stress led to depletion of the genetic resources of soil microflora and to a radical change in its qualitative composition. The amended stressed soils not only has a greater number of species present, but the individuals in the community are distributed more equitably among these species. Non-uniform marginal regain of community was clear with applied conditioner. Positive associations, however were observed with conditioner and phyto-assisted clean-up attempts.

Keywords: Crude oil pollution, soil conditioners, microbial diversity, phytoremediation, environment

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(44) 4220-4225