Search

Soda lakes are salt lakes with a naturally alkaline pH due to evaporative concentration of sodium carbonates in the absence of major divalent cations. Hypersaline soda brines harbor microbial communities with a high species- and strain-level archaeal diversity and a large proportion of still uncultured poly-extremophiles compared to neutral brines of similar salinities. We present the first "metagenomic snapshots" of microbial communities thriving in the brines of four shallow soda lakes from the Kulunda Steppe (Altai, Russia) covering a salinity range from 170 to 400 g/L. Both amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA fragments and direct metagenomic sequencing showed that the top-level taxa abundance was linked to the ambient salinity: Bacteroidetes, Alpha-, and Gamma-proteobacteria were dominant below a salinity of 250 g/L, Euryarchaeota at higher salinities. Within these taxa, amplicon sequences related to Halorubrum, Natrinema, Gracilimonas, purple non-sulfur bacteria (Rhizobiales, Rhodobacter, and Rhodobaca) and chemolithotrophic sulfur oxidizers (Thioalkalivibrio) were highly abundant. Twenty-four draft population genomes from novel members and ecotypes within the Nanohaloarchaea, Halobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were reconstructed to explore their metabolic features, environmental abundance and strategies for osmotic adaptation. The Halobacteria- and Bacteroidetes-related draft genomes belong to putative aerobic heterotrophs, likely with the capacity to ferment sugars in the absence of oxygen. Members from both taxonomic groups are likely involved in primary organic carbon degradation, since some of the reconstructed genomes encode the ability to hydrolyze recalcitrant substrates, such as cellulose and chitin. Putative sodium-pumping rhodopsins were found in both a Flavobacteriaceae- and a Chitinophagaceae-related draft genome. The predicted proteomes of both the latter and a Rhodothermaceae-related draft genome were indicative of a "salt-in" strategy of osmotic adaptation. The primary catabolic and respiratory pathways shared among all available reference genomes of Nanohaloarchaea and our novel genome reconstructions remain incomplete, but point to a primarily fermentative lifestyle. Encoded xenorhodopsins found in most drafts suggest that light plays an important role in the ecology of Nanohaloarchaea. Putative encoded halolysins and laccase-like oxidases might indicate the potential for extracellular degradation of proteins and peptides, and phenolic or aromatic compounds.

We analyzed the prokaryotic community structure of a saltern pond with 21% total salts located in Isla Cristina, Huelva, Southwest Spain, close to the Atlantic ocean coast. For this purpose, we constructed a metagenome (designated as IC21) obtained by pyrosequencing consisting of 486 Mb with an average read length of 397 bp and compared it with other metagenomic datasets obtained from ponds with 19, 33, and 37% total salts acquired from Santa Pola marine saltern, located in Alicante, East Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. Although the salinity in IC21 is closer to the pond with 19% total salts from Santa Pola saltern (designated as SS19), IC21 is more similar at higher taxonomic levels to the pond with 33% total salts from Santa Pola saltern (designated as SS33), since both are predominated by the phylum Euryarchaeota. However, there are significant differences at lower taxonomic levels where most sequences were related to the genus Halorubrum in IC21 and to Haloquadratum in SS33. Within the Bacteroidetes, the genus Psychroflexus is the most abundant in IC21 while Salinibacter dominates in SS33. Sequences related to bacteriorhodopsins and halorhodopsins correlate with the abundance of Haloquadratum in Santa Pola SS19 to SS33 and of Halorubrum in Isla Cristina IC21 dataset, respectively. Differences in composition might be attributed to local ecological conditions since IC21 showed a decrease in the number of sequences related to the synthesis of compatible solutes and in the utilization of phosphonate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]