Hydrocarbons are widely spread in ecosystems and especially persistent under anoxic conditions. Still, certain bacteria are capable to degrade hydrocarbons anaerobically, but their ecology is poorly understood. In this thesis, tools to investigate these degrader communities are developed and extended based on PCR detection, fingerprinting and also pyrosequencing of fumarate-adding enzymes, which are key to anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation. These are employed to unravel the diversity and structure of degrader communities in distinct contaminated terrestrial and marine environments, identifying several novel degrader lineages and monitoring their dynamics in impacted systems.
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Hydrocarbons are widely spread in ecosystems and especially persistent under anoxic conditions. Still, certain bacteria are capable to degrade hydrocarbons anaerobically, but their ecology is poorly understood. In this thesis, tools to investigate these degrader communities are developed and extended based on PCR detection, fingerprinting and also pyrosequencing of fumarate-adding enzymes, which are key to anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation. These are employed to unravel the diversity and structu...
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