Microbial biodegradation of hydrocarbons under different pressures is impacted by the sample origin

The hydrocarbon biodegradation under high pressure (HP) and atmospheric pressure (AP) was investigated. The response of the microbial activity to the HP and AP were determined by the sample origin. Specifically, the sediment samples collected from the deepsea showed higher degradation rates under HP, while the degradation rates of the shallow sea sediments were not dramatically impacted by the HP.In the deepsea sediments, a group of Oceanospirillales, which was closely related to the population that was abundant during the deepwater horizion (DWH) oil spill in the deep plume, was identified during the incubation.