Research Article IsolationandCharacterizationofDiesel-DegradingBacteriafrom Hydrocarbon-ContaminatedSites,FlowerFarms,andSodaLakes Gessesse Kebede Bekele , 1 Solomon Abera Gebrie , 1 Eshetu Mekonen , 2 TekleTafeseFida , 1 Adugna Abdi Woldesemayat , 1 EbrahimM.Abda , 1 Mesfin Tafesse , 1 andFasilAssefa 3 1 DepartmentofBiotechnology,CollegeofBiologicalandChemicalEngineering,AddisAbabaScienceandTechnologyUniversity, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2 Department of Biology, Dire Dawa University, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia 3 Microbial,Cellular and Molecular Biology Department, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Gessesse Kebede Bekele; gessesekebede@gmail.com Received 26 September 2021; Revised 20 December 2021; Accepted 3 January 2022; Published 21 January 2022 Academic Editor: Todd R. Callaway Copyright©2022GessesseKebedeBekeleetal.isisanopenaccessarticledistributedundertheCreativeCommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Hydrocarbon-derived pollutants are becoming one of the most concerning ecological issues. us, there is a need to investigate and develop innovative, low-cost, eco-friendly, and fast techniques to reduce and/or eliminate pollutants using biological agents. e study was conducted to isolate, characterize, and identify potential diesel-degrading bacteria. Samples were collected from flower farms, lakeshores, old aged garages, asphalt, and bitumen soils and spread on selective medium (Bushnell Haas mineral salt agar) containing diesel as the growth substrate. e isolates were characterized based on their growth patterns using optical density measurement, biochemical tests, and gravimetric analysis and identified using the Biolog database and 16S rRNA gene sequencing techniques. Subsequently, six diesel degraders were identified and belong to Pseudomonas, Providencia, Roseomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Ach- romobacter, and Bacillus. Among these, based on gravimetric analysis, the three potent isolates AAUW23, AAUG11, and AAUG36 achieved 84%, 83.4%, and 83% diesel degradation efficiency, respectively, in 15 days. Consequently, the partial 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the two most potent bacterial strains (AAUW23 and AAUG11) were Pseudomonasaeruginosa, while AAUG36 was Bacillus subtilis. is study demonstrated that bacterial species isolated from hydrocarbon-contaminated and/or uncontaminated environments could be optimized to be used as potential bioremediation agents for diesel removal. 1.Background Hydrocarbons, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, kerosene, and diesel are important organic pollutants and inputs for different industries, vehicles, and household activities as a source of energy [1–8]. Among these, diesel is massively used for engine, fuel, and industrial applications. It is one of the products of petroleum com- pounds formed during fractional distillation of crude oil and is composed of a mixture of carbon chains between 9 and 25 carbon atoms that may include both aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbon components [4, 6, 9]. ese hydrocarbon components can be discharged into the environment (groundwater, soil, and air) from different sources (point and nonpoint), such as garages, gas station services, chemical and petrochemical industries, agricultural waste, automobile exhaust spillage of petroleum, run-off asphalt pavements, vehicular emission, and combustion of fossil fuel [10–12]. is phenomenon may happen intentionally or accidentally mainly from anthropogenic activities because of urbanization, industrialization, and civilization [3, 10, 11, 13–15] and, to some extent, by natural disasters [16]. As a result, hydrocarbon-derived pollutants are immuno-toxicant, mutagenic, and carcinogenic to humans and animals and affect natural ecosystem functioning in many ways [2–4, 6, 7, 14, 15, 17–21]. Hindawi International Journal of Microbiology Volume 2022, Article ID 5655767, 12 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5655767