SINGAPORE - Chemicals are usually sprayed on oil slicks in water after an oil spill to break up the pollution, but new research in Singapore has found that nature has its own tool to combat the contamination – an army of micro-organisms.

This finding could inform the development of more environmentally friendly clean-up materials, said Professor Stephen Brian Pointing of the National University of Singapore (NUS), who led the research. It also highlights the importance of the ocean’s microbiome, and why its health should be considered even when designing coastal protection strategies, he added.

In June 2024, Singapore experienced one of its worst oil spills, when

more than 400 tonnes of oil leaked into the nation’s southern waters after a dredging boat hit a bunker vessel

Prof Pointing’s team, who had already been working on research on micro-organism diversity, saw the opportunity in the crisis to learn more about how bunker fuel impacts the microbial environment.

They collected samples of sand from Bendera Bay on St John’s Island, which had been intentionally left uncleaned so scientists could study the impacts of the spill.

Within the bay, they obtained sand from sites that were completely stained with oil, and from areas where no oil slicks were visible.

Using metagenomic sequencing, a method that enables scientists to characterise all genetic material in a sample, the researchers identified the types of micro-organisms found in the samples.

The team found that areas more highly impacted by the oil spill had a greater diversity of oil-eating bacteria, and in particular, one called Macondimonas diazotrophica, which has the ability to break down oil in low-nutrient environments like tropical beaches.

This was the first time that this bacteria ha...