Divergence between Active in situ Degraders and Enriched Isolates Shown by Stable-isotope Based Fatty Acid Analysis

The characterization of polutant-degrading microorganisms from contaminated soils, waste water treatment plants or biofilters for the cleaning of waste gases usually starts with enrichment cultures and ends with the taxonomical and functional characterization of the isolated strains. However, the use of cultivation independent techniques, like cloning and sequencing of marker genes, indicate the presence of a high number of still unknown microorganisms with unknown functions. It is still not clear to what extent the active populations of these complex systems are properly represented by the isolated degraders and how much of the existing biodegradation potential is still not accessable by the available isolation techniques.