Microbial communities inhabited in water droplets in oil reservoirs

Microbes and their metabolic activities in oil reservoirs are important for the geobiochemical processes taking place in the subsurface ecosystem. Although the microbial communities in water leg in oil reservoirs have been extensively studied, the counterparts in water droplets embedded in crude oil were largely unknown. In this project, we collected oil and water samples from oil reservoirs in China and studied the microbes in the water droplets in the oil phase.