To isolate BTEX degraders from the final enrichment culture, the enrichment culture was diluted and spread onto Marine Agar 2216 (MA, Becton and Dickinson, USA) and the plates were incubated for
three days at 25 C. A total of 30 colonies from the enrichment were randomly selected and their 16S rRNA genes were amplified as described by Kim et al. (2008, 2010).