Oil fields harbour a wide variety of microorganisms with different metabolic capabilities. To examine the microbial ecology of petroleum reservoirs, a molecular-based approach was used to assess the composition of bacterial communities in produced water (PW) of Diyarbakır oil fields in Turkey. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA gene fragments was performed to characterise the bacterial community structure of PW samples and to identify predominant community

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... embers after sequencing of separated DGGE bands. The majority of bacterial sequences retrieved from DGGE analysis of PW samples belonged to unclassified bacteria (50%). Among the classified bacteria, Proteobacteria (29.2%), Firmicutes (8.3%), Bacteroidetes (8.3%) and Actinobacteria (4.2%) groups were identified. Pseudomonas was the dominant genus detected in the PW samples. The results of this research provide for, the first time, insight into the complexity of microbial communities in the Diyarbakır oil reservoirs and their dominant constituents.