Biodegradation
The hydrocarbonclastics

The so called hydrocarbonclastic organisms are bacteria and fungi that are physiologically and metabolically capable of degrading petroleum. There are more than 100 species in 30 genera of microbes that are able to use hydrocarbons for subsistence. The most commun assiduous hydrocarbonclastic organisms are Pseudomonas, Nocardia, Vibrio, Candida, Brevibacterium, Corynebacteium, Flavobacterium. , Acinetobacter, Micrococcus, Arthrobacter, Achromobacter, Rhodococcus, Alcaligenes, Mycobacterium, Bacillus, Aspergillus, Mucor, Fusarium, Penicillium, Rhodotorula y Sporobolomyces. The total percentage of organisms that metabolize hydrocarbon is highly variable, 6% to 82% for terrestrial fungi, 0,13% to 50% for terrestrial bacteria and 0.003% to 100% for marine bacteria.

In non-contaminated ecosystems, the micro-organisms that degrade hydrocarbons contribute with less than 0.1% to the microbe community. In hydrocarbon contaminated ecosystems, on the contrary, the hydrocarbon eating organisms can be 100%. In these communities, the dominant populations of organisms have nutritional characteristics related to the contaminant.

Moreover, these microbes can be resistant to many forms of environmental stress. When the source of carbon comes from an insoluble substrate (hydrocarbons), the microorganisms facilitate its diffusion towards the cell producing substances such as carbohydrates, fatty acids, enzymes and biosurfactants. The microbes use these compounds like a biofilm encasing the hydrocarbon to break it into simple oxygen and carbon compounds. In addition, these organisms use the liberated energy from the molecule breakage to manage non-spontaneous thermo dynamical processes, such as the synthesis of cellular compounds.