Structural and functional measures of marine microbial communities: An experiment to assess implications for oil spill management

Microbial communities are ecologically important in aquatic environments and impacts on microbes have the potential to affect a number of functional processes. We have amended seawater with a crude oil and assessed changes in species composition as well as a measure of functional diversity (the ability of the community to utilise different carbon sources) and the community level metabolic signature. We found that there was a degree of functional redundancy in the community we tested. Oiled assemblages became less diverse and more dominated by specialist hydrocarbon degraders, carbon source utilisation increased initially but there was no change in metabolic signature in this small scale laboratory experiment. This study supports the decision framework around management of oil spills. This package of methods has the potential to be used in the testing and selection of new dispersants for use in oil spill response.