Isolation and identification of native bacteria from total petroleum hydrocarbon polluted soil in Wonocolo Sub-District, Indonesia

The presented study concerns isolation and identification of indigenous bacteria in TPH polluted soil. Composite TPH polluted topsoil was collected from Wonocolo public oilfields, Indonesia. Pour plate and plate count techniques were used to bacterial population analysis and enumeration, respectively. Two dominant bacterial colonies were isolated from 4.06x10⁷ CFU/g population in polluted soil, then morphologically and biochemically characterized using Microbact Identification Kits (Microbact^TM GNB12A and 12B). The identification of bacterial isolates was performed using Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology. The results showed that the strains of bacteria are Bacillus sp. and B. cereus with probability of 72.00 and 77.00%, respectively. These strains potentially acted as biosurfactant producers and hydrocarbon degraders. The authors suggest that biostimulation could be implemented to reduce the soil pollution level of TPH at Wonocolo public oilfields.