Fig. 3.

Microbial activity, hydrocarbon oxidation and enzymatic activities are not enhanced by dispersed oil (CEWAF ± nutrients). (A and B) Oxidation rates of ¹⁴C-hexadecane and ¹⁴C-naphthalene as model compounds for alkanes and PAHs degradation, respectively (SI Appendix, Table S1). (C) Rates of bacterial production increased up to three orders of magnitude in the 2 wk between the first and second sampling point (SI Appendix, Table S1). (D–F) Potential activities of peptidase, glucosidase, and lipase measured using fluorogenic substrate analogs were up to one order of magnitude higher in the WAF and dispersant-only compared with the CEWAF ± nutrients treatments. All data are illustrated as average of biological triplicates and error bars show SD of the mean (note that a lack of error bars indicates SDs were too small to be shown on the plot scale).