Total Microbial Profiling…Because Sometimes Bacteria Just Aren’t Enough

摘要

Various types of microorganisms have been identified as important in the bioremediation of chemically contaminated sites. These include bacteria, fungi, archaea and, depending on the substrate (soils, sediment or water), even algae and protozoa. In natural environments, these microbial groups usually occur in complex multispecies communities (consortia), usually bound to surfaces (biofilms). Recent research indicates that bioremediation may occur by multiple species working together to degrade a contaminant. When transferred to a laboratory for standard microbiological culturing, most of the microbial species present in a site go undetected (e.g., <10% of soil bacteria grow under laboratory conditions). If microbial enumeration by standard techniques is used for determining remediation potential, estimates of biotreatability potential of the site will be inaccurate. In addition, the culturing of a single species in controlled labora-