We have created microbial consortia from native hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria isolated from the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk, which not only have hydrocarbon-oxidizing activity, but also accelerate oil degradation due to additional properties (hydrophobicity to petroleum hydrocarbons, emulsifying and lipolytic activity). In addition to typical oil oxidizers, the consortia included bacteria of the genera Niallia, Rossellomorea and Patulibacter, whose hydrocarbon-oxidizing activity was studied for the first time. The established microbial consortia demonstrated high efficiency of oil oxidation in model experiments at salinity 30–40‰ and temperatures of 5 and 22°C. The degree of oxidation of oil on the 28th day of the experiment was 78–94%.
Kim et al. (Wed,) studied this question.