The ubiquitous exploitation of petroleum hydrocarbons (HCs) has been accompanied by accidental spills and chronic pollution in marine ecosystems, including the deep ocean. Physicochemical technologies are available for oil spill cleanup, but HCs must ultimately be mineralized by microorganisms. How environmental factors drive the assembly and activity of HC-degrading microbial communities remains unknown, limiting our capacity to integrate microorganism-based cleanup strategies with current physicochemical remediation technologies. In this review, we summarize recent findings about microbial physiology, metabolism and ecology and describe how microbes can be exploited to create improved biotechnological solutions to clean up marine surface and deep waters, sediments and beaches.

石油碳氢化合物（HCs）的无处不在开采伴随着偶然的溢漏和包括深海在内的海洋生态系统的长期污染。物理化学技术可用于溢油清理，但HC最终必须最终被微生物矿化。尚不清楚环境因素如何驱动降解HC的微生物群落的组装和活动，这限制了我们将基于微生物的清除策略与当前物理化学修复技术整合的能力。在这篇综述中，我们总结了有关微生物生理学，代谢和生态学的最新发现，并描述了如何利用微生物来开发改良的生物技术解决方案，以清理海洋表层和深水，沉积物和海滩。