Abstract
The present study investigated the concerted effort of Eisenia fetida and rhamnolipid JBR-425 in combination with a five-member bacterial consortium exhibiting elevated degradation levels of low and high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) from soil contaminated with Digboi crude oil. Application of bacterial consortium (G2) degraded 30–89% of selected PAH from the artificial soil after a 45-day post-exposure, in which chrysene showed the highest level of degradation with 89% and benzo(a)pyrene is the lowest with 30%, respectively. Moreover, an acute exposure study observed that earthworm biomass decreased, and mortality rates increased with increasing crude oil concentrations (0.25 to 2%). Earthworms with a 100% survival rate at 1% crude oil exposure suggest the tolerance potential and its mutual involvement in the bioremediation of crude oil with selected bacterial consortia. Bacterial consortium assisted with E. fetida (G3) showed 98% chrysene degradation with a slight change in benzo(a)pyrene degradation (35%) in crude oil spiked soil. Besides, the most dominant PAH in crude oil found in the current work, fluoranthene, undergoes 93% and 70% degradation in G3 and G5 groups, respectively. However, rhamnolipid JBR-425 coupled with the bacterial consortium (G5) has resulted in 97% degradation of chrysene and 33% for benzo(a)pyrene. Overall, bacterial consortium assisted with earthworm group has shown better degradation of selected PAH than bacterial consortium with biosurfactant. Catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GST) activity and MDA content was found to be reduced in earthworms after sub-lethal exposure, suggesting oxidative stress prevalence via reactive oxygen species (ROS). Hence, the findings of the present work suggest that the application of a bacterial consortium, along with earthworm E. fetida, has huge potential for field restoration of contaminated soil with PAH and ecosystem sustainability.
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The raw data used and analysed during the present work are available from the corresponding author on request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Director CSIR- Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR) for his support. SK acknowledges UGC, University Grants Commission (UGC), India, for providing the fellowship and Academy of Science and Innovative Research (AcSIR), India, for PhD enrolment. KG is thankful to CSIR, and MS gratefully acknowledges ICMR, New Delhi, for research fellowships. SK, KG, and MS acknowledge other lab members for their support.
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SA and NM are thankful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, for financial support. This manuscript carries the CSIR-IITR communication number: IITR/SEC/2021–2022/65.
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SK: Study design, methodology standardisation, experimentation and observation, sample extraction and analysis for analytical measurements, writing of original draft. KG: writing of original draft, data acquisition and statistical analysis. MS: experimentation of ecotoxicological studies. NM and SA: conceptualization, supervision of experiments, data verification, analysis, and interpretation, funding acquisition, reviewing and editing the original draft.
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Kumari, S., Gautam, K., Seth, M. et al. Bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in crude oil by bacterial consortium in soil amended with Eisenia fetida and rhamnolipid. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 82517–82531 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28082-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28082-y