Characterization of the microbial diversity in production waters of mesothermic and geothermic Tunisian oilfields.

The microbial diversity of production waters of five Tunisian oilfields was investigated using Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) technique followed by cloning-sequencing. Dynamics of bacterial populations in production waters collected from four wellheads were also evaluated. For all production water samples collected, DNA from Archaea and Eucarya was not sufficiently abundant to permit detection rRNA genes from these groups by PCR-SSCP. In contrast, the bacterial rRNA genes were detected in all samples, except for samples from DOULEB12 and RAMOURA wells. SSCP profiles attested that two of the studied geothermic wells (ASHTART47 and ASHTART48) had shown a clear change over time, whereas a stable diversity was found with the mesophilic DOULEB well (DL3). PCR amplification of rRNA genes was unsuccessful with samples from DOULEB (DL12) at all three sampling time. The bacterial diversity present in production waters collected from pipelines of SERCINA and LITAYEM oilfields was high, while production waters collected from wellheads (ASHTART and DOULEB) exhibited lower diversity. The partial study of the biodiversity showed a dominance of uncultured bacteria and Pseudomonas genus (class of the Gammaproteobacteria) in three of the studied oilfields (ASHTART47, ASHTART48 and DOULEB3). However, for LITAYEM oilfield, a significant dominance of 5 phyla (Proteobacteria, Thermotogae, Firmicutes, Synergistetes, Bacteroidetes) was shown. Our study gives a real picture of the microbiology of some Tunisian oilfield production waters and shows that some of the sequenced bacterial clones have a great similarity to previous sequenced clones described from other oilfields all over the world, indicating that these ecosystems harbour specific microbial communities. These findings can be considered as an indirect indication of the indigenous origin of these clones.