Figure 1.

Several potential interactions during oil-mineralization that may affect the rate and extent of biodegradation of marine oil spills. Alkane- and PAH-degrading specialists compete for limiting nutrients in seawater. We extrapolate findings on a benzo[a]pyrene degrading, soil-derived consortium (Kanaly et al., 2002) to marine oil spills (Head et al., 2006) to indicate potential positive mutualistic interactions. The consortium was found to contain a key member (indicated by Sp3) that was unable to degrade the PAH benzo[a]pyrene but excreted factors that aided its degradation and presumably grew on metabolites excreted by other, benzo[a]pyrene-degrading community members (indicated by Sp2).