Developing microbial consortiums is necessary for microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) in heavy crude oil production. The aqueous phase of produced fluid has long been considered an ideal source of microorganisms for MEOR. However, it is recently found that rich microorganisms (including hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria) are present in the crude oil phase, which is completely different from the aqueous phase of produced fluid. So, in this study, the microbial consortia from the crude oil phase of produced fluids derived from four wells were enriched, respectively. The microbial community structure during passage was dynamically tracked, and the response of enriched consortia to successive disturbance of environmental factors was investigated. The results showed the crude oil phase had high microbial diversity, and the original microbial community structure from four wells was significantly different. After ten generations of consecutive enrichment, different genera were observed in the four enriched microbial consortia, namely, Geobacillus, Bacillus, Brevibacillus, Chelativorans, Ureibacillus, and Ornithinicoccus. In addition, two enriched consortia (eG1614 and eP30) exhibited robustness to temperature and oxygen perturbations. These results further suggested that the crude oil phase of produced fluids can serve as a potential microbial source for MEOR.

发展微生物群落对于重质原油生产中的微生物强化采油（MEOR）是必要的。采出液的水相长期以来一直被认为是 MEOR 微生物的理想来源。然而，最近发现原油相中存在丰富的微生物（包括烃降解细菌），这与采出液的水相完全不同。因此，在这项研究中，分别富集了来自四口井的产出液的原油相中的微生物群落。动态跟踪传代过程中的微生物群落结构，并研究富集群落对环境因素连续干扰的响应。结果表明，原油相具有较高的微生物多样性，四口井的原始微生物群落结构存在显着差异。经过十代的连续富集，在四个富集的微生物群落中观察到了不同的属，即土杆菌属、芽孢杆菌属、短杆菌属、螯合杆菌属、尿杆菌属和鸟球菌属。此外，两个富集的联合体（eG1614 和 eP30）表现出对温度和氧气扰动的鲁棒性。这些结果进一步表明采出液的原油相可以作为 MEOR 的潜在微生物源。