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The distribution of archaeal ether lipids is thought to be governed by salinity in hypersaline and marine environments due to differences in their biological sources. However, little is known about their source and relationship with salinity in lacustrine environments. To explore this, we analyzed the distribution of specific archaeal lipids (isoprenoid GDGTs and diethers) of 11 ponds along a salinity gradient (0.8‰ to 279‰) in Inner Mongolia, NE China. Functional gene mcrA and compound-specific stable carbon isotope data were used to explore the biological source(s) of archaeal diether and tetraether lipids. Both lipid- and DNA-based methods showed methanogens to be abundant in ponds, which is consistent with the dominance of GDGT-0 relative to other isoprenoid GDGTs as well as the occurrence of archaeol (C 20 /C 20 DGD), hydroxyarchaeol and the mcrA gene. However, the occurrence of the extended archaeol (C 20 /C 25 DGD) also suggests the presence of Halobacteriales, non-halophilic methanogens and halophilic methanogens. This means that the biological sources of archaeal diethers and tetraethers are complicated. We subsequently evaluated the applicability of TEX 86 temperature and ACE salinity proxies in these settings; however, due to the mixed sources of archaeal diethers and tetraethers, these proxies are not applicable in these ponds and it appears that salinity is not the dominant control on archaeal ether lipid distributions in these saline ponds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]