The functional potential of microbial communities in hydraulic fracturing source water and produced water from natural gas extraction characterized by metagenomic sequencing

PLoS One. 2014 Oct 22;9(10):e107682. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107682. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Microbial activity in produced water from hydraulic fracturing operations can lead to undesired environmental impacts and increase gas production costs. However, the metabolic profile of these microbial communities is not well understood. Here, for the first time, we present results from a shotgun metagenome of microbial communities in both hydraulic fracturing source water and wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing. Taxonomic analyses showed an increase in anaerobic/facultative anaerobic classes related to Clostridia, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidia and Epsilonproteobacteria in produced water as compared to predominantly aerobic Alphaproteobacteria in the fracturing source water. The metabolic profile revealed a relative increase in genes responsible for carbohydrate metabolism, respiration, sporulation and dormancy, iron acquisition and metabolism, stress response and sulfur metabolism in the produced water samples. These results suggest that microbial communities in produced water have an increased genetic ability to handle stress, which has significant implications for produced water management, such as disinfection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alphaproteobacteria / classification
  • Alphaproteobacteria / genetics*
  • Carbohydrate Metabolism / genetics
  • Environment
  • Epsilonproteobacteria / classification
  • Epsilonproteobacteria / genetics
  • Gammaproteobacteria / genetics*
  • Gammaproteobacteria / metabolism
  • Metagenomics*
  • Natural Gas / microbiology
  • RNA, Ribosomal / genetics
  • Sequence Analysis
  • Sulfur / metabolism*
  • Wastewater / microbiology
  • Water Microbiology*

Substances

  • Natural Gas
  • RNA, Ribosomal
  • Waste Water
  • Sulfur

Grants and funding

Work was supported by the National Energy Technology Laboratory's Regional University Alliance (NETL-RUA), a collaborative initiative of the NETL, this technical effort was performed under the RES contract DE-FE0004000 (http://www.netl.doe.gov/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.