MicrobeWorld

As though the Gulf Coast states don't have enough to worry about with crude oil spewing into the water at an estimated rate of 5,000 barrels a day, they soon may also have to worry about bacterial plumes. A microbe called Vibrio parahaemolyticus, common in warm coastal waters like the Gulf, thrives off of crude oil. "You can feed it exclusively oil," Jay Grimes, a marine microbiologist at the University of Southern Mississippi, said of the Vibrio species.