Author(s)

S.S. Radwan & R.H. Al-Hasan

Abstract

Arabian-Gulf coastal materials loaded with oilutilizing bacteria, an overview S.S. Radwan & R.H. Al-Hasan Department of Biological Sciences, Kuwait University,Kuwait Abstract As a consequence of the 1990- 199 1 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, during which crude oil was deliberately released from the Al-Ahmadi Terminal into the Gulf, coastal areas have become heavily polluted with oil sediments. This paper presents an overview of a decade of research on indigenous oil-utilizing microorganisms that we found associated with inanimate and animate materials along the Arabian Gulf coasts, and their roles in the self-cleaning of the oily areas. Animate materials viz. cyanobacterial mats, epilithic algal biomass and macroalgae collected from intertidal zones of oil-polluted and clean coasts were found heavily loaded with oil-utilizing bacteria. Each gram of those coastal materials was associated with up to hundred millions of oil-utilizing bacterial cells. Nearby coastal waters on the other hand, were much

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