During the first exposure, both derived parameters were affected by temperature in case of both substrates (Table S1 and S2). Lag times increased at decreasing temperatures (Fig. 2). As observed earlier, the further below ambient temperature the incubation occurs, the longer the acclimation takes (Atlas and Bartha, 1972). In this study, tlag values were similar for both the test substrate (crude oil) and the positive control (sodium-benzoate), which implies similar initial biomass able to degrade the given substrate and similar metabolic rate. The tlag of crude oil was below that of sodium-benzoate at 15 °C, whereas the opposite was observed at 0.5 °C. Maximum oxygen consumption rates (rmax) increased at elevated incubation temperatures, except the rmax of Na-benzoate, which showed a maximum at 10 °C during the first exposure ( Fig. 2). According to Q10 values determined from rmax values, sodium-benzoate showed significantly lesser temperature response compared to crude oil ( Fig. 3). Q10 appeared to be higher at 0.5 °C, compared to 5 °C in agreement with that observed from literature survey data. However, this difference between the two temperatures in the reported experiment is not significant. Ratios of lag times were calculated in order to study whether Q10 values based on this parameter of biodegradation curves show similar results to that of Q10 values calculated from rmax ( Table S3 and S4). Indeed it can be seen that Q10 values were on average similar to those determined from rmax values, however, only at 5 °C. Q10 values from tlag were similar for the two substrates, in contrast to that observed in Q10 values from rmax.