Microbial Ecology of Oil Degrading Porous Pavement Structures

The microbial ecology of any biodegradation system is the fundamental factor that controls both the effectiveness of the ongoing biodegradation process and also the ability of the biodegrading population to maintain stability at times of environmental stress. Studies are reported here which provide both initial information on the ecology of an oil degrading porous pavement system (PPS) and significantly advances our knowledge on the appropriate techniques to study that ecology. A major step forward has been made in the use of molecular biological techniques to quantify bacterial biodiversity and these techniques have shown for the first time the extent to which, despite the fact that a single carbon source is available, the complexity of the microbial population in a model structure increases with time. In fact, the initial commercial inoculum used is totally replaced by a bacterial population selected for the conditions in the structure. The importance of the protozoan population and source of its inoculum is also demonstrated.