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Cyanobacteria are a group of oxygenic phototrophs existing for at least 3.5 Ga. Photosynthetic CO2 assimilation by cyanobacteria occurs via the Calvin cycle, with RuBisCO, its key enzyme, having very low affinity to CO2. This is due to the fact that atmospheric CO2 concentration in Archaean, when the photosynthetic apparatus evolved, was several orders higher than now. Later, in the epoch of Precambrian microbial communities, CO2 content in the atmosphere decreased drastically. Thus, present-day phototrophs, including cyanobacteria, require adaptive mechanisms for efficient photosynthesis. In cyanobacterial cells, this function is performed by the CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM), which creates elevated CO2 concentrations in the vicinity of RuBisCO active centers, thus significantly increasing the rate of CO2 fixation in the Calvin cycle. CCM has been previously studied only for freshwater and marine cyanobacteria. We were the first to investigate CCM in haloalkaliphilic cyanobacteria from soda lakes. Extremophilic haloalkaliphilic cyanobacteria were shown to possess a well-developed CCM with the structure and functional principles similar to those of freshwater and marine strains. Analysis of available data suggests that regulation of the amount of inorganic carbon transported into the cell is probably the general CCM function under these conditions.

The composition and macroscopic structure of the floating oxygenic phototrophic communities from Kulunda steppe soda lakes (Petukhovskoe sodovoe, Tanatara VI, and Gorchiny 3) was described based on the data of the 2011 and 2012 expeditions (Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology). The algo-bacterial community with a green alga Ctenocladus circinnatus as an edificator was the typical one. Filamentous Geitlerinema sp. and Nodosilinea sp. were the dominant cyanobacteria. Apart from C. circinnatus, the algological component of the community contained unicellular green algae Dunaliella viridis and cf. Chlorella minutissima, as well as diatoms (Anomeoneis sphaerophora, Brchysira brebissonii, Brachysira zellensis, Mastogloia pusilla var. subcapitata, Nitzschia amphibia, Nitzschia communis, and Nitzschia sp.1). The latter have not been previously identified in the lakes under study. In all lakes, a considerable increase in salinity was found to result in changes in the composition and macroscopic structure of algo-bacterial communities.