Figure 4 describes what functions were expressed in the active microbial community enriched in the plume, with a focus on hydrocarbon degradation genes based on metatranscriptome sequencing results. The finding suggest the alkane monooxygenase were highly expressed for alkane and specifically for cyclohexane degradation. The alkane degradation was the major hydrocarbon degradation pathway. X-axis Blue bars denote the distal station metatranscriptome and red bars denote the proximal station metatranscriptome with reference to relative abundance of the genes Y-axis Denotes the names of the genes also p-vales for the confidence intervals with authenticate the bioinformatics and statistics analysis

In this paper why only meta-genomics and meta-transcriptomics techniques were used and meta-proteomics techniques were ignored. While in the end when pathways were described by the publishing group is discussing proteins and enzymes involved in pathway e.g. in figure 5?

Microarray analysis of functional genes and also DNA based methods such as cloning and sequencing of 16S rRNA genes suggest the shifts in the microbial community structure over time in response to the deep-sea plume of hydrocarbons. Is that shift in microbial community is only because of the expression of temporal genes and ability to use hydrocarbons as substrate for communities present in that area or does that spillage attracted other microbial community (can use hydrocarbon as substrate) from the environment because of less competition for substrate or food and easy availability?