Date of Award
2014
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.Sc.
Department
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Keywords
Biological sciences, Earth sciences, DNA, Fluid fine tailings, RNA, Sediment oxygendemand, Sulfate-reducing bacteria, T-RFLP
Supervisor
Weisener, Christopher Grant
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Microbial communities can dominate Fluid Fine Tailings (FFT) in the presence of electron acceptors (e.g. Sulfate). Sulfate reduction can produce hydrogen sulfide, one of several chemical constituents responsible for sediment oxygen demand (SOD). The preservation of RNA is a crucial step to study active microbial populations and their activity in FFT and hence understand the biological factors contributing to SOD. In our study different RNA preservation methods were tested to preserve microbial RNA in FFT sample. The results confirmed that LifeGuard(TM) Soil Preservation Solution (MO BIO Laboratories, Inc, California) is the best preservative method for RNA preservation. Through T-RFLP analysis of 16s rRNA and 16s rDNA, SRB's (Sulfate Reducing Bacteria) are shown to dominate the FFT during initial stages of incubation but its population decreased significantly over-time. This observation suggests that sulfate reduction is a self-limiting process and has less impact on the quality of overlying water column.
Recommended Citation
Mullapulli Raveendran, Sabari Prakasan, "Developing molecular tools to assess the biogeochemical/microbial community structure of oil sand processed waste material" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5060.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5060