Collaborative Research: Chemical and microbiological studies of water-soluble alkanes in the ocean

该研究项目利用地质石油渗漏作为自然科学实验室，研究进入海洋的碳氢化合物的命运。 将讨论的知识价值的关键问题集中在方法的开发和应用，以确定碳氢化合物分子的化学性质如何决定它们是否会被困在海洋内部或找到进入大气层的方式。 该研究将进一步跟踪这些分子在海洋内部的命运，确定海洋细菌种群如何反应，以及响应细菌将降解这些分子的程度。这项研究的更广泛影响将包括对本科生和研究生进行科学研究和海上海洋学培训的培训，以及向努力了解海洋中碳氢化合物的命运和影响的决策者传播研究结果。 碳氢化合物通过自然渗漏、人为排放和生物生产的组合进入海洋，对海洋地球化学、生态和大气产生深远影响。该研究项目涉及影响海洋中水溶性烷烃的化学和生物过程，使用天然渗漏来研究其通量，海洋和大气之间的分配以及细菌对其输入的反应。 这项研究的智力价值涉及高挥发性碳氢化合物的行为，这类碳氢化合物在石油储层和许多原油和精炼产品中含量丰富，但在海洋中却知之甚少。 与传统石油相比，挥发性碳氢化合物表现出不同的行为，因为它们将根据其分子结构和进入海洋的环境而分配到海水或大气中，这些特征的组合不适合传统的命运和运输模型，这些模型支配着我们对液体石油的理解。该研究项目通过计划在自然渗漏的背景下研究挥发性、水溶性碳氢化合物来解决这一知识差距，重点关注有关其运输和命运以及海洋的关键问题？的微生物反应。两个关键问题包括：1）什么因素控制水溶性烷烃在自然渗漏中在水和大气之间的分配，以及这如何影响它们对微生物的可用性？ 2)哪些基因组和代谢因素使微生物对水溶性烷烃的输入作出反应，微生物的反应如何随区域海洋学和地质因素（如接近自然渗漏和来自自然渗漏的通量）而变化？ 这些问题产生的假设将通过一系列海洋学和实验室实验进行测试，这些实验是围绕太平洋和墨西哥湾的天然石油渗漏设计的。这些研究的结果有望为我们了解海洋中水溶性烷烃的运输、命运和影响提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project addresses the fate of hydrocarbons that enter the ocean, using geological oil seeps as a natural scientific laboratory.  The key issues of intellectual merit that will be addressed focus on the development and application of methodology to determine how the chemical properties of hydrocarbon molecules dictate whether they will be trapped in the ocean's interior or find their way to the atmosphere.  The research will further follow the fate of these molecules in the ocean's interior, determining how the ocean's bacterial population responds, and the extent to which responding bacteria will degrade these molecules. The broader impacts of this research will include the training of undergraduate and graduate students in scientific research and at-sea oceanographic training, as well as the dissemination of findings to policy makers striving to understand the fate and effects of hydrocarbons in the ocean.  Hydrocarbons enter the ocean through a combination of natural seepage, anthropogenic discharge and biological production, with profound impacts on ocean biogeochemistry, ecology, and the atmosphere. This research project addresses the chemical and biological processes affecting water-soluble alkanes in the ocean, using natural seeps to study their fluxes, partitioning between ocean and atmosphere, and the bacterial response to their input.  The intellectual merit of this research pertains to the behavior of highly volatile hydrocarbons, a class that is abundant in petroleum reservoirs and many crude and refined products, but is poorly understood in the ocean.  Volatile hydrocarbons display distinct behaviors compared with traditional oil in that they will partition to seawater or the atmosphere depending on their molecular structure and the context by which they enter the ocean, a combination of characteristics unsuitable for traditional fate and transport models that govern our understanding of liquid oil. This research project addresses this gap in knowledge through a plan to study volatile, water-soluble hydrocarbons in the context of natural seepage, focusing on key questions about their transport and fate, and the ocean?s microbial response. Two key questions include:  1) What factors control the partitioning of water-soluble alkanes between water and the atmosphere at natural seeps, and how does this affect their availability to microbes?  2)  What genomic and metabolic factors enable the microbial response to the input of water-soluble alkanes and how does the microbial response vary with regional oceanographic and geologic factors such as proximity to and flux from natural seepage?  The hypotheses that result from these questions will be tested through a series of oceanographic and laboratory-based experiments designed around natural oil seeps in the Pacific and in the Gulf of Mexico. The results of these studies promise to inform our understanding of the transport, fate, and effects of water-soluble alkanes in the ocean.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.