Composition and diversity of soil bacteria community from contaminated soil after an underground oil leak in Antarctica.

This project aims to evaluate the native bacterial community from Antarctic soils after an underground oil leak caused by a buried broken pipe in Carlini Station, Antarctic Peninsula. Due to the nature of the leak, various soil depths were sampled. Contaminated soil samples were collected from sites with different degrees of exposure to the hydrocarbons (directly affected and peripheral to the spill area), whereas the control soil samples were collected from non-contaminated reference sites. 16S rRNA gene amplicon was performed to determine the bacterial diversity and community structure providing a snapshot of the status of the native bacterial communities and their response to the hydrocarbon presence in the soil when the samples were obtained.