Eleanor Arrington

Research

My research here at UCSB is studying the biodegradation of water-soluble hydrocarbons from natural and anthropogenic sources. My research builds on recent findings from heavily studied marine oil spills –the Refugio pipeline breach and the Deepwater Horizon blowout –and capitalizes on access to natural seep systems offshore California and in the Gulf of Mexico. I am interested in which microbes respond water-soluble hydrocarbons (an understudied class of compounds in petroleum), and the metabolic strategies they employ to eat these toxic compounds in dynamic environments such as the deep ocean.