Profiling bacterial and eukaryotic microbial communities of polychaete burrowing in oil contaminated sediments. Polychaete burrows harbour distinct microbial communities in oil-contaminated coastal sediments

Summary The polychaete worm Hediste (Nereis) diversicolor is an important bioturbator within estuarine sediments. In today’s oil dependant world contamination events are ever increasing, particularly in areas with high human activity such as estuaries. Previous studies have shown that H.diversicolor may significantly affect the composition of bacterial communities in oil contaminated sediments. We wanted to further test the hypothesis that sediments with H.diversicolor would be more efficient at degrading oil and that bioturbation would have a significant impact on the eukaryotic microbial community as well as the prokaryotic microbial community. Eukaryotic degradation of oil in sediments is not well characterised and we expected fungi to play an important role. Oil contaminated estuarine sediments were incubated in cores for 30 days with or without H. diversicolor.